In Which We Burn
by vultures
Summary: As the anomalies grow both more frequent and more dangerous the team realises that they have a crisis on their hands. But the stakes are higher now, and time itself may well hang in the balance. Can they work out what's going on before it's too late?
1. Chapter 1

**Full Summary: **As the anomalies grow both more frequent and more dangerous the team realises that they have a crisis on their hands. But with the appearance of a strange recurring anomaly and a cryptic warning from someone they thought they'd never see again, will the team work out what's going on before it's too late? The stakes are higher now, and time itself may well hang in the balance. Ensemble action fic. Ignores series 2 finale.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, and probably never will be either. Title inspired by a quote by Delmore Schwarz.

* * *

It was hot.

Not your usual "ooh, it's a bit warm in 'ere" sort of hot. More like actual heat wave, tyres of parked cars melting on the roads and grannies fainting from sunstroke sort of hot. And in Abby Maitland's flat, it was stifling.

"Have we got any ice?" a familiar voice called from the kitchen and Abby looked up, craning her head to see Connor sticking his head through the doorway.

"I put a tray of ice cubes in the freezer yesterday," she called back, idly stroking along Rex's spine as he perched on the back of the sofa. He, at least, seemed to be enjoying the Indian summer. There was an agreeable sound from Connor and then she heard him shuffling around, opening drawers and clinking classes together as he got one out of the cupboard. She'd remembered the ice cubes yesterday, when she was putting the most recent delivery of food for her snake in there… Oh, God. The snake's food!

"Connor!" she cried, jumping to her feet and sending Rex flying into the air in surprise at the sudden movement. "Don't open the-"

Before she could finish her sentence there was a shout of surprise and the sound of something, quite possibly a tray of ice cubes, being dropped. With a sense of trepidation, she appeared in the kitchen doorway. Connor spun around to face her, wide eyed.

"There's a bag of dead rats in the freezer," he told her, sounding more than just a little bit surprised. Just as she had suspected, the floor around his feet was sprinkled with bits of ice and the now empty tray was still in his hands.

Abby grimaced at the mess. "Yeah. Sorry, I should have told you they'd been delivered."

Connor nodded. "Right. Yeah, it's ok. But _why _are they in there?"

"For the snake. I normally only get a few at a time, but I bought in bulk this time. There was an offer." Abby told him, as though it should have been obvious.

"You can get dead rats on offer?" Connor asked, looking incredulous. Abby shrugged, starting to grin slightly at the look on his face.

"If you know where to look."

He opened and closed his mouth once or twice, but was spared the trouble of having to think of an adequate retort when his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. Half a second later, Abby's followed suit. The both of them knew that this could only mean one thing, and as they opened up their identical messages at the same time Abby groaned and Connor merely raised his eyebrows down at his screen.

"Anomaly," Abby said, looking up in time to see Connor nod.

"Yeah. Near Cambridge." And with that he shoved his phone back into his pocket, slipping past her into the living room where he hopped comically on one foot, putting on his shoes. Abby walked out to stand in front of him, hands on hips. He looked up at her curiously and she raised an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked.

"You've got some ice to clean up before you go," she told him, and couldn't resist sticking her tongue out childishly as he groaned.

To his credit Connor did sweep up the ice and deposit it in the sink before they left, and a little over an hour later the team found themselves briefed and standing in a muddy field somewhere in Cambridgeshire. A rather disgruntled looking farmer had greeted them at his gate and led them here, grumbling under his breath about government officials all the way.

"What seems to be the problem, then? Mr…" Jenny asked, offering the man a smile.

"Davies," he informed her, but didn't shake the hand she offered him, choosing to glance out over his land instead. "Well I went out and checked the sheep last night, made sure they was all safe an' sound. Everything was quiet so I went to bed. I went out this morning to feed them, and…" he trailed off, making an expansive gesture.

Nick frowned. "And what?"

"And my whole field's full of these bleedin' goats!" Davies finished, looking back at the team and sounding positively outraged. Abby and Stephen exchanged an incredulous look; Connor's detector had picked up anomaly activity in the area, which was why they'd been sent. So why on earth were they wasting time standing here, listening to a farmer tell them about his livestock?

"Goats?" Jenny repeated, sounding as though she were trying her best to sound pleasant and not at all confused.

Davies nodded. "Yeah. Weird things they are. Big, with these odd noses and long hair. Never seen anything like 'em, but they've been eating the food I put out for the sheep."

"Maybe we should have a closer look," Nick decided. Davies nodded.

"C'mon then, I'll take you up there."

The tiring walk up a dirt track that followed was both long and uneventful, unless you counted Jenny almost falling over on three separate occasions as her heels got stuck in mud or caught against stones. In the end she resorted to hanging on to Nick for the remainder of the trek. He didn't seem to mind very much, prompting much muttering and meaningful looks from Abby, Connor and Stephen.

When the field first came into view they didn't immediately notice anything unusual. There was a large flock of sheep gathered near the gate, milling around restlessly. And then, further away, there was another group of light coloured animals contentedly grazing. From a distance, they might have been mistaken for sheep as well but as the group arrived at the gate it quickly became obvious that they were not.

They were a good bit taller, for one. Also they had some rather impressive horns.

"Some type of antelope?" Abby guessed, leaning on the gate for a closer look. Unsurprisingly, none of the "goats" were coming anywhere near them. Davies turned to look between the group, raising his eyebrows.

"So you tell me what they're doing in my field!" he demanded, apparently not best pleased. At this Jenny turned to him and smiled, letting go of Nick's arm. She was suddenly professional again.

"They must have escaped from a private collection. There are a lot of farms nowadays that specialise in rarer breeds of livestock. Quite a bit of money in it, I understand," she added knowledgeably, glancing at Nick as Davies just scowled.

"So what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"We'll have them rounded up and returned to their owner as soon as possible. And of course, you'll be reimbursed for the cost of any feed you've lost."

The mention of compensation seemed to be the magic words, because suddenly Davies seemed slightly more cooperative.

"Right. Well I've got a cow about to give birth up by the house and I'd best keep an eye on her."

"Of course. You get on with that and we'll keep you updated," Jenny smiled, turning to watch him as he walked back down the track. Once he was out of sight she turned around, looking to the others.

"What _are _those things?"

"Like Abby said, some type of antelope. But we're going to need a closer look," Nick answered, eyeing the gate. Throughout their conversation with Davies Connor had been standing against it, the sheep sticking their heads through to nibble at his sleeves and at his pockets while he looked caught between amusement and concern. It quickly became obvious that they would not be able to open the gate without the animals escaping, quite possibly in search of something more appetising than items of clothing.

"Come on then." Stephen, ever practical, made short work of climbing over the gate. The sheep on the other side moved out of the way as he landed, eyeing him warily. While the others moved to follow him, Jenny gestured down at her lower half. Heels, semi-opaque tights and a _skirt_ of all things.

"You have got to be kidding me."

But they weren't and eventually, with a bit of assistance from Nick, she managed to get over without giving anyone a flash of her underwear. Then they found themselves amongst the flock, who's initial wariness seemed to be quickly becoming replaced by curiosity.

"Has anyone ever seen that film Black Sheep?" Connor asked, as they pushed their way though the flock, Stephen at the lead shooing the animals out of their way so that they could get through. He glanced back at Connor, lips twitching in amusement as Abby shot the younger man a vaguely horrified look.

"Now probably isn't the best time to mention it," he told him, finally stepping clear of the group of sheep and coming to open field. The others followed and there stood the odd looking antelope in all their glory.

They were about the size of an average deer, covered in a multitude of shaggy, light coloured fur. The males vastly outnumbered by what seemed to be females, were adorned with some rather impressive pairs of horns. And all of them looked as though they were attempting to grow an elephant's trunk but not quite managing it.

Abby squinted at them, tilting her head to the side.

"Are those saiga?" she wondered. Stephen looked at her, raising an eyebrow at how quickly she recognised them. At his questioning look, she shrugged. "I heard a talk about them once. The WWF were trying to get people to stop poaching them. Very rare antelope, live in Russia and Mongolia… I think."

"They're a long way from home, then," Stephen looked vaguely puzzled.

Connor was frowning, looking thoughtful. "They were common in the last Ice Age."

Nick nodded, confirming the fact. "And their numbers have been decreasing ever since. I don't think there's many left now at all." He paused for a moment, eyeing the large herd. "So judging by the number we've got here, I'm guessing they're not from modern times."

Connor grinned. "Cool. Maybe we'll get a mammoth through next? Or a woolly rhinoceros. They should have been around at about the same time as these guys. I've always wanted to see one of them…"

He trailed off, perhaps realising that the others did not seem to be sharing his enthusiasm. "What?"

"How about you take this," Nick waved the handheld anomaly detector at him, "And find our anomaly. It's got to be around here somewhere."

"Yeah, right." Connor took the detector and fiddled with it for a moment until, apparently satisfied with what he'd just done, he turned and gave Nick a mock salute before heading off in what was apparently the direction of the anomaly. After a moment's pause Abby set off after him, picking up a sidearm before she left just in case.

That left Nick, Jenny and Stephen with the problem of how exactly they were going to round up a whole herd of uncooperative Saiga.

Half an hour later and Jenny had phoned around and arranged a large livestock transport lorry, which was now parked in the middle of the field. Lester had sent a team from Special Forces to accompany it, just in case.

An hour later and Connor and Abby had returned, having tracked down the anomaly to some nearby woods. The others had still had no luck in trying to cajole the saiga into going into the lorry. Every time they managed to herd them together, through some rather foolish looking waving and shouting, a few would just break off again a few seconds later.

In the end it was Abby, perched on the bonnet of the truck, who came up with their master plan. She glanced between the saiga and the sheep, narrowing her eyes speculatively.

"Why don't we just use sheepdogs?" she wondered. So they did.

It was left to Jenny to go back up to the farm house and convince Davies to help them. Grumbling and muttering under his breath, though apparently reluctant to really disagree with them now that there were a dozen armed men on his land. Two rather excitable looking border collies bounded in front of him, but both quickly proved to be far more sensible than they initially looked and made short work of rounding up the saiga just as effectively as they usually did with the sheep. Before long all of the confused looking creatures were safely enclosed in the back of the lorry, ready to be transported to the anomaly site. Then it was just a case of setting up some metal railings to guide the antelope towards the anomaly, and succeeding in startling them enough so that they ran towards it. Which wasn't that difficult, really, and Nick and Stephen seemed to be rather enjoying it.

The team stood back, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as the last antelope disappeared back through the anomaly, and just in time. Just a few moments after it passed through Connor looked up from the anomaly detector.

"Signal's getting weaker," he warned, turning to watch as the mass of sparkling light gradually faded, finally winking out of existence altogether. Case closed.

* * *

It had been hours since the day's somewhat unusual events when Davies woke up in the middle of the night, seeing nothing but black until his eyes adjusted to the darkness of his bedroom. It took him a few seconds to identify what had woken him, but when he did alertness came quickly. Downstairs, the dogs were barking frantically. Beside him his wife stirred in her sleep but didn't wake up and, careful not to disturb her, he slipped out of bed and got to his feet.

The dogs were still going at it, and he could hear a series of faint thuds and scratches as they pawed at the kitchen door. Quickly he crossed the dark room and slid open the top drawer in his cabinet, feeling around beneath pairs of socks and underpants before his fingers closed around metal. He pulled out the old pistol he kept there, just in case, then opened the door and slowly made his way downstairs.

The two collies paused in their barking to look around at him as he entered the kitchen, then continued on as though he wasn't there.

"What is it, girl?" he asked, reaching down to stroke the head of the dog closest to him. "Is there someone out there?"

He fumbled with the lock for a moment and the dogs were out before he'd fully opened the door, streaking out like black and white bullets into the night. He pulled a torch from one of the cupboards, switching it on before following the dogs out.

"Nell! Jack!" he called after them, expecting them to return. But they paid little heed and he could hear them barking as they raced towards the field where his cows were. Grumbling under his breath he limped after them as quickly as he could manage. As he neared he heard the sound of more growling and then a series of high pitched wails, then silence. Suddenly he heard whining and looked down, the beam of his torch illuminating the form of Nell as she raced back towards him. She was trembling violently, he realised, pressing herself against his legs as though for protection. He frowned, raising the torch so that it's light fell on the field.

Most of the cows had fled to the far corner, milling around anxiously, but there was a still form lying on the ground not far in. As he stepped closer, Davies realised with growing horror that it was one of his cows sprawled across the ground. Initially he thought of colic, but as he neared the body it quickly became apparent that the cow's end had been a violent one. The animal's side was torn open right open, hide marked by teeth and claws. And there, lying next to the fence, was Jack. The sheepdog was utterly still, eyes wide open and unseeing. It's throat had been torn clean out.


	2. Chapter 2

****

A/N: I should probably warn you that this chapter contains a _little_ bit of gore. Nothing really graphic, but if that sort of thing really squicks you then here's a heads up.

It was eight o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, and Jenny could think of a hundred other places she'd rather be than Nick's car. Not that there was anything wrong with the car, of course, though technically it wasn't even his, it belonged to the Home Office. The company was quite nice, too. It was just the fact that she'd been woken up an hour earlier by Lester calling her that she had a problem with.

The anomaly detector had gone off at approximately 6:45am, presenting the team with the prospect of yet another creature incursion somewhere in the vicinity of the New Forest. Now the team were piled into the car, halfway through the journey there. Jenny had the front passenger seat, possibly because Nick had taken pity on her and decided that she shouldn't have to squash into the back with the others. At this thought she glanced in the mirror, looking back at Abby, Stephen and Connor in the back of the car.

Abby had her eyes closed, face pressed up against the closed window. If she wasn't asleep, it certainly looked as though she was. With Connor there was no such doubt. He'd spent the first half an hour or so of the journey crammed into the middle seat, cheerfully speculating on what would be waiting for them when they reached the New Forest before seeming to finally run out of energy so early on a Saturday morning. Now he was snoring faintly, and had slowly slid sideways so that he was leaning on Stephen who, with his ipod on, seemed to be doing his best to ignore the younger man. Quite a difficult feat, because every now and again Connor would twitch or mutter something unintelligible and shift his weight on Stephen's arm.

As Stephen grimaced slightly, attempting to pull his hand out from beneath Connor, he looked up and caught Jenny's eye in the mirror. She smiled and looked away, amused, as he rolled his eyes good naturedly.

They reached their destination nearly two hours later (it should have been one, but they'd got lost in a one-way system and it had taken a good deal of map reading and swearing to get back on the right track). They pulled up in a visitor's car park by a nature trail, which was thankfully devoid of picnicking families; a few phone calls on Jenny's part had ensured that the area around the anomaly was cordoned off at least until they found out whether anything dangerous had come through.

Jenny's phone started to ring again and as she went off to answer it the others busied themselves with their weaponry, Nick, Abby and Stephen arming themselves with tranquiliser guns. Connor eyed Abby's pistol hopefully as she loaded it, but she just stuck her tongue out at him.

"Not a chance."

"I don't see why-" he started to argue, but was cut off as Jenny came walking back over. This time she'd wisely swapped her heels for a pair of flats, they noticed.

"It would seem like a predator's come through," she sighed, putting her phone back into her pocket. "They've found a New Forest Pony not far off of the nature trail and it looks like something's had a go at eating it."

The something, whatever it was, had been pretty successful the team found out a few minutes later when they reached the site where the pony had been found. It lay beneath a tree, covered beneath a large sheet of tarpaulin, but it's hooves were visible sticking out from beneath. A warden was standing nearby, looking both confused and distressed as he gazed in the direction of the tarpaulin.

"A family found her earlier, lying just off of the trail," he explained, rubbing his face with his hand. "I don't know what could have done it, it's just bizarre."

As Jenny gave him a comforting smile and started putting together a cover story, the others gathered around the covered body, all wearing expressions of trepidation. Sharing a glance, Nick and Stephen picked up one corner of the tarp each and lifted it away to uncover the body. Instantaneously, they all recoiled.

"Well, that's unpleasant." Nick's expression was grim.

Connor launched into a coughing fit that sounded suspiciously close to retching. Abby gave him a wary look and stepped out of the line of fire, just in case, but he managed to keep a hold of his breakfast. Beneath them lay the bay mare, sprawled in the mud. To put it simply, the body was _mangled_.

Stephen crouched down beside it, frowning down at the marks in the flesh. He lifted one of the hooves, examining an almost-severed limb and made and anxious sound in his throat.

"These are all teeth marks," he said, as the others shot him enquiring looks. "All the gouges… they've been made with teeth."

Nick realised the implications almost at once, taking Stephen's place next to the body as Stephen stood up. "Big teeth. Bloody _massive_ teeth." He bent over the pony, examining a particularly neat row of teeth marks in its side. As Abby nervously checked and re-checked their tranquiliser guns to make sure that they were loaded and ready to use at the slightest sign of danger, Connor looked on, apparently vaguely horrified that Nick was actually _touching _the bloody mess.

"I'd say they have got to be about seven or eight inches, serrated from the look of these marks," Cutter decided eventually. Abby's eyes widened as she seemed to work out exactly how large a head would have to be to accommodate fangs that size.

Stephen wasn't listening, crouched down a little further away and peering intently at an area of churned up ground. "I've found some prints."

Connor seemed to perk up at the idea of something he could examine that wasn't part of a dead animal and hurried over to stand beside him. At the sight of the prints, deep in the mud, he grinned.

"Professor, look at these!" And he crouched down, trying to gauge how big the things were with his hands. Cutter joined him, raising his eyebrows as he looked down at the marks in the mud. He seemed impressed, and Connor was grinning madly. Stephen and Abby shared a nonplussed look behind their backs, Abby because she hadn't seen the prints and didn't know what was going on and Stephen because he _had _seen them and couldn't see how they were anything to smile about.

"It walks on two legs, and look at the three toes," Nick was tracing the shape of one of the prints with his finger. "I'm thinking…"

"Theropod, yeah?" Connor cut it, sounding excited, and Nick nodded.

"Theropod," he confirmed. "Have a look on your database, try and find what we're dealing with."

"I'm on it." Connor sprang to his feet, almost running back to the car to pull his laptop out and set it up on the bonnet. While the others were organising the disposal of the pony before the sight could scar any more families, Abby wandered over.

"What are you so excited about?" she wondered, leaning on the car next to him. He didn't look up as she approached, too engrossed on whatever was on the screen of his laptop. For a moment he didn't answer her either, just typed, and she thought that he must have missed her question too.

"It's an actual theropod," he answered eventually, sounding distracted. He paused from whatever he was doing to look up and smile at her. "Proper, proper dinosaurs. The type that you see in books and get toys of when you're little."

"If you're a strange child perhaps. I got teddy bears," Abby couldn't resist saying back, but she was beginning to understand his enthusiasm. Up until now they'd had mostly obscure creatures, beautiful and interesting but not immediately recognisable.

Connor snorted, going back to his database. "I can't imagine you liking teddy bears."

Abby was just about to ask him what he meant by that (and possibly whack him if it was something derogatory) when he spoke again.

"T-Rex was a theropod," he added conversationally, looking up when Abby made a sound of alarm. At the sight of her worried face he hurried to reassure. "But don't worry, the thing we've got here seems a bit small for that. And… I think I've got it. Have a look at this."

He turned the laptop around so that she could see the screen. What she found was a detailed taxonomy, but Connor was pointing out one name in particular. And as she watched, he pulled up a picture.

Connor was right. It did look like the typical dinosaurs you saw in cartoons and children's books.

"Carcharodontosaurus," he said proudly. "Cretaceous period theropod dinosaur. Bit smaller than a Tyrannosaurus. This is brilliant!"

"Until it eats you," Abby reminded him mildly, which seemed to sober him slightly. "Come on, we'd better go and tell the others what we're up against."

When they walked over to Nick, Stephen and Jenny and Connor mentioned the words "bit smaller than a T-Rex" again, the others looked appalled. All except Nick, who looked as though he might be just a little bit excited as well. Jenny wasted no time in calling in Special Forces either, and before long the car park was swarming with SAS men loading their guns.

There was an argument over whether the creature should be shot or merely tranquilised, which Nick seemed to lose when the new Special Forces captain informed him in no uncertain terms that if a dinosaur tried to take a bit out of any of him team he would not hesitate in "blowing it's brains to kingdom come". Jenny winced a little at the wording, but seemed to agree with the sentiment. This was an extremely dangerous creature; they couldn't afford not to shoot it if it looked as though it was going to cause trouble.

Throughout this Abby and Connor sat on the bonnet of the car, watching the goings on somewhat dejectedly. They had already been told that in no circumstances were they to be involved in the party going after the dinosaur.

"It's too dangerous, and neither of you are experienced with weaponry," Nick had told them, apologetically. Before Abby could argue that she knew how to use a pistol Connor cut in.

"Neither are you!"

"But they need someone with knowledge about dinosaurs," Nick had answered, and before Connor could protest that _he _knew about dinosaurs Nick shook his head. "They only need one. And you can't shoot."

So now they were decidedly _not _sulking, exchanging plots and ploys that would allow them to get involved in the goings on.

"Cutter!" Abby called out as the others appeared ready to set off on their monster-hunting escapade. Nick looked around. "What about the anomaly? You'll need someone to monitor it, won't you?"

Nick glanced between the two of them, Connor eyeing him hopefully.

"Alright," he sighed. "Take two from Special Forces with you, and radio if you see or hear anything unusual."

Connor waited until the others had turned away and two armed men had peeled themselves away from the group before he held his hand up to Abby. "High five?" She smiled and complied, slapping his hand harder than he had expected. Together the two of them stood up, Connor shaking his hand, and looked at the two SAS men waiting for them.

"Get the handheld detector and let's go," Abby told him, sparing a glance over to where Jenny was busy phoning around to construct a plausible cover story.

Meanwhile the Special Forces group, accompanied by Nick and Stephen, were not having much luck in their pursuit of the Carcharodontosaurus. On several occasions Stephen had found prints in the mud, but the ground was often too churned up to make much sense of them. There were places where saplings had been knocked over and trampled into the dirt, but creature didn't seem to be moving in any distinct direction, doubling back on itself and making its trail difficult to follow. The SAS men were on edge, assault rifles at the ready, but oddly enough there was neither sight nor sound of the dinosaur. Which was somewhat worrying, considering its size.

Stephen made a sound of frustration, stopping dead as the group reached a road cutting through the forest.

"What is it?" Nick asked, coming up behind him.

"I've lost the trail. It must have gone onto the tarmac, and I can't see any prints on the other side."

"None at all?"

"Nope. We're going to have to follow the road and look for any signs that it went back into the forest."

"But we need to know what way it went. Otherwise we might end up walking for miles in the wrong direction."

Stephen grimaced. "I know."

Back at the car park, Jenny was doing slightly better.

"Tell them it's an escaped tiger. A young one. Illegally imported and kept as a pet, but the owners panicked and let it loose once it started to get too big. And yes, once we've found the thing you can tell the press that it's been caught and is going to be donated to a zoo where it can live out it's days happily ever after."

She smiled, and hung up her phone.

"I nearly went for a job here once."

Abby and Connor were sitting down, leaning against a tree a few feet away from the glittering anomaly. The two Special Forces men had withdraw away from them, close enough to see everything that they did but far enough away to keep their conversations from being overheard. Neither of them had relaxed their grip on their weapons.

Connor tilted his head to look at her. "Really?"

She nodded. "There's a reptile centre not far from here. They do a reptile walk, looking for adders and grass snakes and things. But then the position at the zoo came up, so I went there instead."

Connor frowned slightly. "What do you tell the zoo about all this anomaly stuff? Have they even asked?"

"Lester's people sorted it out, just said I was involved with some research so could I have some leave," Abby shrugged. "Why, what have you told the uni?"

"Not much," Connor admitted, "I don't think they really notice. My attendance wasn't that brilliant anyway."

"Hmm." Abby made a sound that could have meant anything, looking up as a flock of starlings took flight from a nearby tree. Both of them watched their flight for few long moments, idly taking in the patterns they made as they swooped through the air. They'd both been tense and on edge at first, periodically scanning the surrounding area and the anomaly for signs of any creatures. As time passed, however, and one hour became two and then three with no signs of anything unusual, they'd started to relax. Occasionally they'd heard or caught a glimpse of New Forest Ponies moving around nearby but nothing else had come near. Nick and Stephen were still gone, with no word from them that they'd either seen, caught or been eaten by the Carcharodontosaurus.

Eventually Connor moved, getting to his feet. Abby shifted from beside him, shooting him a quizzical look.

"I'll be back in a sec," he told her, and she frowned.

"No, hang on. Where are you going?"

He blinked down at her. "I've had two bottles of coke since we got here. Wheres d'you think?"

Realisation dawned on her face, and she grinned. "Oh, ok. Don't frighten the horses."

He stuck his tongue out at her, somewhat childishly, and disappeared off into the trees. He didn't want to stray too far away from the others (particularly the protection of their M4 assault rifles), but neither did he want to risk them stumbling across him and being caught, quite literally, with his pants down.

He was just doing his trousers back up when it occurred to him that the forest had been oddly silent lately. And that was something that he'd almost definitely seen in a horror film at some point. Come to think of it, his whole situation probably was. He'd watched some variation of the "there's a monster in the woods, one of the group goes off on their own for some reason and gets picked off" scenario hundreds of times. But that was silly… Real life didn't happen like it did in films.

He'd just reassured himself of this and was about to return to the others when there was a rather distinct thud not far away. Connor froze, turning around. There it was again; the creaking, cracking sound of a tree being pushed aside. And, as the sound of movement drew closer, he started to feel vibrations through the forest floor. An image flew unbidden into his mind - ripples spreading through a glass of water, and it started to occur to him that he really shouldn't have been so pleased to get a theropod through this anomaly. Then it occurred to him that he really should be running if he wanted to avoid becoming lunch.

He turned around, shoving his way through the undergrowth as the heavy footfalls behind him grew louder. Branches snagged at his clothing but he struggled onwards, starting to sprint as best he could while trying to avoid getting stuck in stinging nettles. He came to a sudden stop, almost falling over, as his jacket became caught on a bush and struggled out of it, resorting to leaving it behind in order to escape.

He thought that he could hear shouting - maybe Abby's voice - back towards the anomaly, but then he stumbled out of the bushes, tripped and found himself sprawled across tarmac and all thoughts of the others left his head. He rolled over onto his back, scrambling backwards into the middle of the road as a particularly large something started to emerge from the trees.

The Carcharodontosaurus stepped out onto the road.

Connor's first thought was _it's beautiful_. And it was; a sort of greenish-grey with rust coloured markings along its head and spine, forming bands down its sides. It stood bipedal, the weight of its long body balanced out by a thick, muscular tail. And the head… Cocked slightly to the side on a strong neck, it had to be about a metre and a half long.

Connor's second thought was _oh god it's going to eat me_.

There was rustling in the bushes to his left and Connor caught a glimpse of something brown and deer-shaped as the panicked creature took flight. The Carcharodontosaur's head turned in the direction of the movement, honing in on the deer, and Connor took his chance. He sprang to his feet and ran, hoping intensely that the deer would be enough to hold the dinosaur's attention until he'd gotten far, far away.

He would have no such luck, it seemed, because he hadn't gone far before he heard the sounds of the theropod coming after him again. He ran on, breath coming in short, sharp gasps as he picked up speed. He was getting a stitch already, and it quickly became obvious that he wouldn't be able to maintain his current speed for any length of time. Only a matter of time before he became dino-food.

He was sure he could see a small collection of buildings up ahead - a village, or something. It occurred to him that he probably shouldn't be leading the creature towards where there were other people, and he looked around for somewhere else to go. But then he heard a roar from behind that sounded far too close for comfort and he kept running.

A cattle grid lay across the road in front of him and he hardly slowed as he ran across it, trying desperately not to put his feet down the gaps and narrowly avoiding breaking his ankle. Somehow he managed to get across without doing himself any harm, and he was still running when he heard an almighty crash and a roar from behind him. He couldn't help but slow down to glance over his shoulder and when he did he nearly stopped dead out of shock.

The Carcharodontosaurus was on the ground, the claws of its hind feet caught hopelessly in the cattle grid, struggling vainly to get to its feet with its smaller forelegs. The sight was so out of place, so bizarre, that he couldn't help but laugh.

He was still bend over almost double, struggling to catch his breath and watching the Carcharodontosaurus from a wary distance when the others arrived. Nick and Stephen stared at the dinosaur, wide eyed with shock as it struggled and roared its displeasure. Their companions from Special Forces looked as though they weren't quite sure what to make of the situation, but made quick work of readying tranquiliser guns and shooting the creature. Abby arrived not long after, frantic and out of breath, only to find herself staring open-mouthed at a twelve metre dinosaur lying unconscious across a cattle grid.

When they arrived back at the ARC several hours later (after a stop off at a takeaway on the way) they expected a quick debriefing before they could go home and catch up on some well-deserved rest. What they didn't expect was for Lester to greet them by the anomaly detector, looking somewhat grim. Connor glanced automatically at the detector, half expecting there to have been another anomaly while they were out, but the screen proclaimed nothing of the sort. Why, then, was Lester looking at them like that?

"We've had some phone calls," he said. "From the farm you were at yesterday. It seems there may be a problem."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

In which the team make a startling discovery, and Stephen discovers that he doesn't like being sneaked up on.

**A/N:** I apologise for the delay. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to update again until about the 5th of June, possibly a bit later. Real life (a.k.a exams) calls.

* * *

"What sort of problem?" Nick asked, sounding both tired and suspicious. As far as he was concerned, whatever new crisis had popped up while they were dealing with the last anomaly could bugger off, at least until the team had had a decent sit down and a cup of tea.

"There have been reports of some stray dogs attacking pets and livestock in and around Great Shelford," Lester told them, his tone of voice suggesting that he could predict the protests that they were about to throw at him.

Nick frowned. "So why do we have to know this?" The expressions on the others' faces mirrored his own; incredulous, and slightly annoyed. None of them were in the mood to care much about a village somewhere with a dog problem. Lester heaved a long-suffering sigh and passed Nick a sheaf of papers from his desk.

"Look at the pictures. Do you really think this was done by dogs?"

Jenny gave Stephen a gentle push as he blocked her view of the papers as Nick flicked through them, then wished she hadn't. Some of them contained pictures showing scenes similar to the one they'd found in the New Forest earlier that day. In one a cow lay dead in a field, in another there was a sheepdog with blood staining the white markings on its coat.

"There's no reason to suspect it was a creature though, is there?" Stephen pointed out. "There haven't been any new anomalies."

Lester looked up at him, raising his eyebrows. "Great Shelford is less than a mile away from the farm that was overrun with prehistoric antelope yesterday. That's one incredible coincidence."

Nick and Stephen shared an uneasy look. "It's possible that we could have missed something when we were rounding up the Saiga," the former admitted.

"We're going to have to check it out, aren't we?" Abby was the reluctant voice of reason. When Lester nodded the affirmative, she looked up at him. "Now?"

"I've told the local council that you'll be there as soon as possible. There are some rather unhappy farmers waiting to show you their dead livestock." He paused, taking in everyone's ruffled and (in Connor's case) mud-splattered appearance, then added "You've got time for a change of clothes first."

As the others glanced doubtfully at their watches, no doubt noting that it was nearly tea time, Connor groaned.

"The Empire Strikes Back is on tonight. I was going to watch that!"

"You've seen it enough times to recite all the lines anyway," Abby said sensibly, taking his arm and dragging him off towards the locker room. Nick and Stephen hesitated for a moment, looking back at Lester as if they were hoping he would suddenly decide not to send them out again after all. He didn't, however, and eventually they followed after Abby and Connor.

* * *

"It's bloody unacceptable. I tell you what, if I ever see the damn things on my land I won't hesitate to shoot their bleedin' brains out."

Mr Davies was in a foul mood. The others had noticed as soon as they arrived at the village hall and he had greeted them with at the door with a scowl and some ill-natured grumbling under his breath.

"Yes, well we'll need to gather as much information as we can before we decide what our course of action is to be," Jenny answered smoothly. A moment later the others wished she hadn't as they stepped inside to find what seemed to be half the village gathered inside, looking annoyed and all too willing to share their stories.

Connor smiled, attempting to appear cheerful. "Well here you go, Jenny. This is your sort of thing isn't it?"

Nick couldn't help but smile as Jenny looked over her shoulder and glared at the young man, but it seemed that her professionalism wouldn't allow her to contradict him in hearing range of the villagers.

"Yes. Well if you'll tell me exactly what happened, Mrs Pegg?" she turned to face the group of people, addressing a nearby elderly woman first.

"Well I was getting ready for bed last night. Just cleaning my teeth, you know?" she started, pausing to allow Jenny to nod amazingly patiently. "So I'm in my bathroom when I hear a commotion outside. I looked out of the window and couldn't see anything, so I went outside and it was the horse going mad. He was terrified, and when I looked the cat was lying outside the tack room all… all torn up."

The last words seemed to be an effort to say and she swallowed hard, looking tearful. Nick and Stephen exchanged significant looks. Mrs Pegg hadn't just said dead, but _torn up_. Just what, exactly, were they dealing with here?

As it turned out, the others in the hall all had similar stories - livestock being worried or attacked, family pets disappearing. One farmer from just outside the village had a particularly worrying story; every one of his sheep, all kept closely together in a pen for the night, had been killed. Only one of them showed signs of being eating. The others, it seemed, had just been slaughtered for no real reason.

"We're going to need to look at some of the properties," Stephen decided. "We won't have any idea of what we're dealing with otherwise."

And so they left, heading for the unfortunate Mr Morris's farm to see his slaughtered flock. It was only ten minutes away from the village hall and before long they stood gathered on his property, looking apprehensively at his sheep pen. The bodies had all been dragged into a pile and covered with a tarp, but otherwise the scene had not been disturbed.

"We've got to be looking at an opportunistic predator," Abby decided, eyeing the covered mound of dead sheep warily. When the others looked at her, she elaborated. "Whatever it is, it's programmed to kill and eat whenever it has the chance. When it got in among the sheep they were such easy targets that it had a field day. You see it with wolves when they get in amongst livestock. Instinct - bloodlust, whatever - takes over and they kill everything they can."

"It'll be those bloody dogs from the gypsy camp we had 'round here last month," Morris told them knowledgeably. "Half-wild creatures they were. Ran amok and worried all me sheep while they were here. I thought we'd got rid of them, but there must have been some left behind."

Abby made a noncommittal noise in her throat in response, which Morris seemed to take as her agreeing with him. Meanwhile, Stephen had been examining the ground around the sheep pen. He frowned at the marks in the mud where the bodies of the sheep had been moved.

"You've obscured any spoor by dragging the bodies around," he told Morris, looking up momentarily from his search. The farmer frowned and shrugged defensively, and Stephen went back to studying the ground. Connor couldn't see what the point was, really. As far as he could see it was just churned up _mud_.

"Any ideas?"

He jumped as Abby touched his shoulder.

"I don't know. But what you said earlier, about wolves, that kind of gave me an idea." He looked at Nick as he spoke, and the older man nodded to show that he was listening.

"Dire wolves would have been alive the last time Saiga were common in large numbers," Connor continued. "And with what you were saying about wolves a minute ago, that would make sense. Wouldn't it?"

He glanced at Nick again, looking to be either turned down or supported.

"It's a possibility," Nick agreed.

"Come and look at this!"

The three of them looked around as Stephen called out, obligingly crossing through the mud to where he was crouched inside the sheep's pen. He was pointing at something in the mud. A print.

"Canine?" Abby guessed, looking down at the outline of a paw in the mud. It was lucky that it had survived, really; the ground all around it was churned up beyond all recognition. Without looking up, Stephen nodded. Nick crouched down beside him, frowning as he looked down at the print.

"Not very big," he seemed surprised. The paws of the creature that made it seemed to be smaller than the average dog's, which was very odd indeed when one looked at the carnage the creature had managed to create. Which, of course, implied that…

"It can't have been alone," Stephen surmised. "Never would have been able to bring down a fully grown cow otherwise. We've got to be looking at pack hunters. Probably."

"Not a Dire Wolf, then. These are far too small. Though we should probably be looking alone those lines," Nick added, glancing over his shoulder at Connor, who looked momentarily disappointed that his idea had gone out of the window.

"I can think of any Borophaginae this small," he mused, "I don't know. Maybe it's-"

But he never got any further, because at that moment Abby leaned forward and noticed something that the others apparently hadn't.

"I'm sorry," she said, "Is this paw _webbed_?"

Nick stared down at it, and Stephen shot her a wry smile.

"I was kind of hoping that was just where it had smudged. Because otherwise-"

"-I've never seen anything like it." Nick finished his sentence for him, which would have been amusing in any other circumstances. As it was, everyone was rather preoccupied with the thought of what could quite possibly be large numbers of a vicious canid with _webbed paws _stalking the area. Abby looked confused, Nick worried and Stephen grim. Connor was grinning widely.

"This is brilliant!" he enthused, "We might have discovered something completely new."

Abby shot him a look that was hovering somewhere between being amused and reproachful. "Yeah, but I don't think you'll be winning any prizes for your discovery if it _eats _you before you can tell anyone."

Connor made a visible effort to keep his enthusiasm under check, but it was immediately obvious that he couldn't help but be excited.

"So what's the plan, then?" he asked. Stephen sat back on his heels, eyeing the pile of dead sheep speculatively.

"I think… We use bait."

* * *

Davies was not amused. Not in the slightest.

Not by having to bury the best sheepdog he'd ever had. Not by the interfering people from DEFRA or some such organisation on his land. Not by the bloody SAS men crawling all over his fields, and definitely not with the plan that they had come up with to catch whatever had been terrorising the local livestock. It involved using his sheep as bait. He was quite protective of his sheep - they were his livelihood, after all. When the brown haired man had explained his plan to several from his flock, he'd thought about arguing. Then he'd taken one look at the Special Forces captain behind him cradling a rifle, and decided that this probably wouldn't be a good idea.

So he'd taken to standing back and grumbling under his breath about the whole thing instead. He would have gone back to the farmhouse, where he could tell his wife all about it over a cup of tea, if he hadn't been determined to stick around and make sure that these people from the government didn't harm his sheep in any way.

Abby glanced over her shoulder at the farmer as she closed the gate of the small pen, trapping the small group of five or six sheep inside. They wandered around, confused and nosing at the bars holding them inside, and she instantly felt rather sorry for them.

"Make sure you tranquilise the things _before _they can get to the sheep," she reminded the man standing behind her. Captain Dunton. He'd taken over control of their personal Special Forces troop since their last captain was killed in the Permian.

The SAS man shrugged. "I'll do what I can. Not promising anything, though."

He turned back to his men who were busy preparing their weaponry, unloading boxes of ammo from their vehicles and loading guns.

"Set up a perimeter around the field. If a target comes into your sights shoot immediately." He paused. Perhaps he sensed Abby's glare on the back of his neck because he shot her a wry smile and then added, sounding somewhat exasperated, "Aim to tranquilise rather than kill if possible, but don't take any risks. We don't know what we're dealing with here."

Abby retreated back to the SUV where Jenny was talking on her mobile again, looking worried. Connor was sitting in the back, fiddling with the anomaly detector and looking frustrated. As she approached he looked up at Nick and shook his head.

"No anomaly activity. Hasn't been any since yesterday." He paused, frowning slightly. "What are we going to do with the things if we can't send them home?"

"We'll deal with that once we've caught them. And once we have an idea of what on earth they are," Nick answered, shrugging. He opened his mouth as though he were about to say more, but then Jenny hung up and turned towards them, looking worried. "What?"

"A child has been attacked in the village."

Abby's eyes widened. "How bad-" she started to ask, but didn't seem to be able to finish the question. She didn't need to; everyone else was already thinking the same thing.

"I don't know," Jenny admitted, looking troubled. "Not fatally, apparently. I'm going to have to go, smooth things over."

As she stepped back towards one of the SUVs Nick looked alarmed. "You can't go on your own," he protested.

The woman turned back towards him, raising one eyebrow. "Why ever not?"

Nick was silent for a moment, apparently unable to come up with a suitable answer for her question. Anything along the lines of 'because it's too dangerous' would, he was sure, be immediately taken by her as patronising. He settled on simplicity.

"I'll come with you."

There wasn't much that she could argue with in that, and so she simply gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Alright, then. Come on."

Jenny drove and Nick sat in the passenger seat, fiddling with the radio just for something to do. Finally he settled on a song that didn't make his ears want to bleed and at which Jenny didn't grimace and shake her head. Naturally, this only happened just as Jenny turned the SUV around a corner and down a little lane lined with cottages, their destination. There seemed to be a commotion outside one of the houses, a number of cars pulled up on the driveway.

Jenny parked in the road and they both jumped out, walking quickly up to the house. There was the village policeman standing on the doorstep, talking to a worried looking couple and as they watched another man in a sombre grey suit pulled a large leather back out of his car and enter into the house. A doctor, Nick and Jenny realised belatedly.

"Jennifer Lewis and Nick Cutter. Home Office," Jenny flashed her I.D at the couple and the police officer as she approached. "Can you tell me what's happened?"

The woman, the little boy's mother, Nick guessed, answered the question. She looked tearful, but seemed to be managing to stave off a breakdown.

"Josh was out the front here playing football and Dave and I-" she glanced at her husband "-Were in the kitchen, getting dinner ready. Then I heard Josh shout something, but I didn't think anything of it of first. I thought he was just playing…" Here she trailed off, taking a shaky breath before she tried to continue. "But then I heard the dog start barking, so I went out to make sure that Josh wasn't winding her up, and…"

She shook her head, refusing to look at Jenny as she furiously blinked back tears.

"I'm sorry, I've got to get back to him," she said, and hurried back inside after the doctor. While Nick watched her go, Jenny had already turned her attention to the husband.

"She went out there and a few seconds later she starts screaming for me. When I ran out there, Josh was on the floor crying with blood all over him."

"Have you called an ambulance?" Jenny asked, sounding worried. The husband - Dave - nodded.

"Yeah, called one almost straight away, along with the police. We didn't know what had happened at first, thought it could have been a person. The hospital's quite far away, so we thought we'd call the doctor too, until the ambulance gets here."

Jenny nodded, professional. "We're going to have to see him."

Dave looked somewhat reluctant, but didn't seem to want to argue with someone allegedly sent by the Home Office. After a moment's hesitation, he led them through into the living room of their house. There were bloody towels strewn across the furniture and floor, and perched on the sofa there sat a boy of five or six. The doctor was crouched in front of him, keeping pressure on an arm that was swathed with makeshift bandages. Unsurprisingly, Josh was crying his eyes out.

Jenny, with a cursory glance at the boy's mother, who nodded, went and knelt down next to the doctor.

"Josh?" she said softly, "Josh, can you talk to me for a minute? I've just got one question to ask you."

Nick was surprised at how her voice, usually slightly steely when she was speaking in a professional capacity, instantly morphed into something soft and gentle. Josh looked up at her, face tear-stained, and nodded slowly.

She smiled. "Thank you. You're a good boy, Josh. Now, try and remember something for me. Can you tell me what the thing that hurt your arm looked like?"

Josh looked up at her, wide-eyed, taking hiccupping breaths. "They were monsters," he told her, with no trace of uncertainty in his voice. "I thought they was dogs but they weren't. They were monsters."

"Ok darling, thank you. You've been very brave."

Jenny turned around, eyes worried as she looked at Nick.

__

Monsters.

* * *

Stephen crouched down, shining his torch down at the ground. There was a set of prints there and he examined it carefully, letting out his breath in disappointment when he recognised them as belonging to a fox. With that he switched the light off again and stood up, raising a hand to the night vision goggles around his neck. He wasn't using them yet, but he would need them soon; it was getting dark.

Leaving Captain Dunton to set up a perimeter around their bait and Connor and Abby to look out for any signs of anomaly activity, Stephen had set off into the woods in search of prints. He was tense, on the alert for anything that could rip the side of a cow to shreds, but not defenceless. Across his back there was slung an M4. Pride of the ARC's armoury, unless you counted the couple of sniper rifles that nobody had really found a use for yet.

From some distance he heard a faint howl, and instantly returned to the present. He pulled on the night vision goggles, but they revealed nothing; just the cold stillness of the trees around him. He slid them down again as he reached a likely patch of ground; next to a small creek, and the mud was churned up. With a quick look around him, he crouched down. A tingle of excitement ran through him.

Here were the prints again.

They still showed the strange suggestion of webbed paws and he frowned, wondering how that would work on a canine. That was when he heard the twig crack behind him.

He spun around, on his feet at once. Reflexively he had pulled the rifle into his hands, cradling it ready to shoot. He had expected woodland creatures, or god forbid the things that had been killing livestock. What he hadn't expected was to come face to face with a _girl_.

She smiled at him, a little sheepishly. "Hello."

He just stared at her for a moment, stunned. She could only have been in her late teens - seventeen or eighteen. Ginger hair, and a young face. Annoyance and urgency overtook his surprise.

"What are you doing out here?" he demanded to know.

She shrugged. "What are you?"

"Government business," he told her curtly, hoping that it would both impress her and put her off. Unfortunately, it did neither.

"Oh, cool. You'll be after those stray dogs, then?" She was watching him interestedly.

"I… Yes. You'd better clear off, they've started attacking people now," he added warningly.

The girl just snorted. "They wouldn't. They know the difference between people and animals."

Stephen just eyed her somewhat warily. He hadn't relaxed his grip on the M4, but oddly the girl didn't seem to be paying the weapon much attention. Maybe she was a bit gone in the head, had learning difficulties or something. That would make sense, in which case she needed to leave the area immediately.

"They've already started on people," he told her grimly, watching as her eyes widened with genuine surprise this time. "I told you, it's not safe round here."

"What people?" she asked, urgency creeping into her voice this time.

"A boy from the village," Stephen told her, surprised at her sudden change of attitude. "You really can't wander around in this area. It's not safe."

"I'm not scared of the dogs," the girl persisted, and Stephen resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"It's not just the dogs you need to be worried about. A quarter of a mile that way there are about 20 armed men on the lookout for anything dangerous. If you sneak up on them like you did to me, they'll shoot you before you get the chance to explain yourself." He gestured back in the direction of the field.

The girl looked vaguely horrified at the thought, and for a moment Stephen let himself believe that he'd finally drummed the seriousness of the situation into her. Then she folded her arms, regarding him crossly, and he decided that he really didn't want to be dealing with this.

"Why are there armed men here? They're not going to try and shoot them, are they? They're just dogs!"

Stephen was tempted to reply with a contrite "No, they're _not _just dogs!" but he had a vague idea that Jenny would have his head if he started leaking information to the general public. And the girl was still giving him a horrified look.

"They're just going to tranquilise them, alright?" he reassured her. That was when he heard the unmistakeable sound of gunshots in the distance. He tensed, and the girl raised her eyebrows at him.

"Tranquiliser guns, huh?" the look she gave him was disbelieving and just a little bit disgusted. Apparently she knew that tranq guns sounded like - the shots they'd just heard were definitely real weaponry. Stephen, however, had no time to worry about the girl's reaction. If Special Forces had resorted to shooting, then that could only mean one thing. Their trap had worked, and the creatures had taken the bait.

By the time he arrived back at the field (the girl still in tow - he'd tried telling her that she couldn't come with him but she'd taken no notice, and he hadn't been quite sure what to do about that) the others were already there, gathered around a pile of slumped forms on the grass. They looked up briefly as he approached.

"Who's that?" Connor asked, looking behind Stephen. The girl stepped forward, suddenly all smiles.

"I'm Lucy, nice to meet you," she introduced herself cheerfully, then looked craned her neck to try and look past him. "Ooh, are those the dogs? I like dogs, can I see?"

She was already slipping past a rather surprised looking Connor by the time that Jenny realised what was going on and gently, but firmly, steered the girl away. Stephen heard her talking as they walked away, back towards the farmhouse.

"Yes, yes... Going to have to leave, I'm afraid…"

He turned his attention to the pile of bodies. And they were bodies, he realised. They were dead, not just tranquilised. It was a fact that Abby didn't seem all that pleased about; while Nick and Connor knelt down next to the canid creatures, she was busy glaring at the back of Captain Dunton's head.

"You were just meant to tranquilise them!" she snapped, and the SAS Captain turned around to face her, looking vaguely irritated.

"And we did," he informed her calmly, "As soon as we spotted them. And then, all of them having been hit with several doses, they went on to tear up the sheep anyway."

Abby immediately whirled around to look for the sheep, of which were was only one left standing, trembling and terrified looking. She looked appalled. Nick and Connor, however, didn't even seem to be listening. They were far to absorbed with the creatures, and it seemed that even the thought of having to touch dead things couldn't put Connor off of examining them thoroughly.

Stephen stood and watched, eyeing the things curiously. They were odd, to say the least. Obviously canine, and at a glance you could probably take them for ordinary dogs. But when you started to look closer, the differences started to become obvious. They were relatively short and long-bodied, but nothing like the Daschunds Stephen had seen being walked by their owners, all stubby legs and wheezing and back problems. These were… sinuous. Their fur was dark and thick, possibly waterproof. Their faces were essentially dog-like, although the ears were smaller and eyes somewhat larger than normal with a thin and almost pointed snout. And the teeth… Relative to the size of the creature's head, they were much larger than the teeth of any dog he'd ever seen.

All that before you even got to the paws.

Connor was kneeling down to examine one, the creature's body sprawled across his lap. He was frowning as he held the stocky, muscular leg. Nick was frowning too, Stephen realised. Both of them had seemed excited at first, and Connor had been grinning like a loon (although how unusual was that, really?) but now they were both looking serious and… confused?

"What is it?" he asked, gaining Abby's attention too so that she turned to listen in to the conversation.

"They're… weird," Connor said weakly, not even looking up. "They don't make sense."

"Yeah?" Abby didn't get what the problem was. "So they're something that hasn't been found in the fossil records before?"

Nick shook his head. "It's not just that. They don't _fit_."

"What do you mean they don't fit?" Stephen asked, sharing a slightly confused look with Abby.

Nick twisted around, still on his knees, to face them. "There's nothing in the fossil records the slightest bit like these, either. Nothing they could have evolved from, nothing that evolved from them. They don't even fit into any family… They're just on their own."

"There shouldn't be anything remotely like this in the ice age," Connor piped up. "And definitely not living in the same places as Saiga. I mean, look at these things. They're built for living in dark, cramped conditions and surviving floods. Not for living up on mountains."

Now that he'd said it, it seemed quite obvious. The strange canines, whatever they were, obviously hadn't evolved to live on mountainsides like the Saiga had. The climate they were adapted to would be completely different.

"So what were they doing in the Ice Age?" Abby asked the question on everyone's lips.

"What about the future?" Connor hazarded, "They're like nothing we've seen before, and we've already seen future predators. Who's to say that they're the only things to come through into the past?"

A grim silence met his words.

"In which case," Nick broke it, sounding worried, "Then a creature from our future has come through from our past…?"

"So time's buggered up. Yeah." Connor nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

****

A/N: It seems I have a lot to apologise for in this chapter. Firstly, the delay in updating. Secondly the length, which is lacking. And thirdly? I am going to be in Argentina for the next four weeks, teaching English and working in an orphanage. While I will have sporadic access to the internet, I doubt I'll have much time to write so it could be some time before I get the next chapter up. Adios!

Fate, it seemed, had deigned to be kind to the ARC team. The bodies of the strange canines were disposed of without a hitch, and they managed to return to the ARC facility without any new crises cropping up on the way. They were even allowed the luxury of a whole two days with no new anomalies, in which nothing once tried to eat them and the most difficult decisions they had to make involved what they were going to have for tea. But remember, fate can decide to be kind but it is never _entirely _lenient.

Which is why the anomaly detector went off at a quarter to three on Saturday morning, dragging everyone out of bed.

They stood gathered in front of the anomaly detector, blinking in the harsh strip lighting of the ARC, while they got the coordinates of the latest creature incursion. It took Connor a moment to translate the data into an actual place, and when he did he groaned faintly.

"Northwest Wales," he informed the rest of the frankly quite horrified team. "On the island of Anglesey."

"Please tell me that the Home Office is going to fly us over there. I don't think I could stand being stuck in a car with this lot the whole way," Abby turned pleading eyes on Jenny, and the older woman smiled.

"I'm sure I can sort something out."

'Something', as it turned out, was a private plane belonging to an acquaintance of Lester. At Heathrow they stood around and watched as the team from Special Ops loaded all of their weaponry onto the plane, and it quickly became apparent why a private plane was necessary. There was no way that Captain Dunton was going to get a semi-automatic weapon through the airport's metal detectors.

That, Nick suspected, would have caused something of a stir. So it was a good thing that Lester and Jenny had been able to arrange this, really. But, as he boarded the little plane (and it really _was _little - surely that wasn't a good thing), he couldn't help but wish that they'd been given something a little more sturdy looking. He didn't exactly enjoy flying at the best of times. And this? This was downright unpleasant.

There were enough spare seats on the plane to spread out and so they did, Connor claiming a row for himself while the men from special forces, again led by Dunton, installed themselves in the back.

"So where are we going?" Abby turned around on her seat to look between Nick, Stephen and Connor.

"Anglesey Aluminium, apparently. Judging by the anomaly's coordinates, it should have opened up right in their factory," Nick checked the information that Connor had printed off again, just to confirm it.

Abby grimaced. "Fantastic. How are you going to explain this one, Jenny?"

The woman in question looked up from the papers she had been looking at with a grim little smile. "Oh, I'm sure I'll think of something."

She had enough time; between the rest of the flight, the time it took to get everything unloaded from the plane and then the drive from the airport to the factory, it was another few hours before they arrived at Anglesey Aluminium. Enough time for anything to happen, and that was their real worry.

"You're here about our _problem_?" The foreman did not waste time by introducing himself as the team clambered out of their SUVs in front of the factory. He wore a high-viz jacket and a worried frown.

"Jennifer Lewis, Home Office," Jenny flashed him her I.D and a professional smile. "Now what seems to be your problem?"

"Leo Carpenter," the foreman shook her hand, pausing to glance curiously at the others as they gathered behind her, apparently armed and prepared. He didn't answer her question at first, just glanced nervously back at the factory building. "We can talk about it in my office. There's things you need to see."

Nick opened his mouth, ready to protest. If there was an anomaly in there somewhere then they needed to get there straight away. Before he could say anything, though, Jenny had already spoken.

"Of course." And then she turned to face the others, "Dunton, will your men stay here until we need you? I doubt we'll all be able to squeeze into the office."

Nick wasn't the only one who looked unhappy with this idea, but Captain Dunton nodded anyway. "Right. But if we see anything suspicious…"

"You'll blow it to pieces, we know. Just give us a little warning first," Jenny's smile was a little exasperated as she addressed him, but then Leo was leading the way to his office and the others had little choice but to follow. It quickly became obvious by his hurried steps and jerky movements that the foreman was nervous, and this only served to put the others on edge too. Something was obviously going on here.

Leo closed the door behind them as they stepped into his office, Connor and Abby having to squeeze forward so that he could shut the door. There were used mugs cluttering the desk and a calendar featuring scantily clad women pinned to the wall next to the door, which held Connor's attention for a few moments before Abby elbowed him in the side.

"Here you go. Take a look at these," Leo held out a thick cloth bag of something lumpy and handed it to Stephen. He opened it and peered inside then looked back up to Leo, frowning.

"What-?"

"What's in there?" Nick took the bag and emptied it out onto Leo's already disordered desk. Various objects of different shapes and sizes tumbled out, all of them exactly the same shade of bright silver. The others stared at them, and it was a moment before anyone realised what they really were.

"It's a skull!" Abby pointed at the largest object, which was indeed skull. It looked human-sized.

"What are these made of?" Nick asked, hefting what appeared to be a leg bone in his hand. "Looks like aluminium, but it's too heavy."

"It's coated in aluminium," Leo told them, a strange look on his face. "But that's not what it's made of. Under the metal, that's real bone."

Connor dropped the metallic fibula he'd been examining with a look of faint horror.

"Why are you showing us this?" Nick had put the femur back onto the desk, and did not look best pleased.

Leo shrugged, looking vaguely apologetic. "I thought you might be interested. They're what we fished out of one of our electrolysis tanks this morning. You've just met one of our night workers."

"Oh. Oh dear." That just about summed it up, really.


	5. Chapter 5

"Why do we need to see this?" Nick asked, eyeing the aluminium coated pile of bones uneasily. He sounded bewildered, a little annoyed. Leo Carpenter sighed, running a tired hand over his face.

"There is no access to our electrolysis tanks from the ground, at least not without getting special clearance. It's not possible to just fall in. This was not an accident. And that, I think, is where you come in."

"So how would one end up in one of your tanks then?" Jenny asked, frowning.

"From above," Leo looked uncomfortable. "The tanks have an opening at the top, where the cathode goes in. You'd have to be dropped in from directly above it."

Nick and Stephen shared a look. "Ah."

"Look, I don't know what it is that's got loose and I don't really care," said Leo, looking harassed, "I just want it out of the plant so everything can get back to normal, okay?"

"Not to worry," Jenny patted him on the shoulder, "You and the rest of your employees can take the rest of the day off. We'll let you know when it's safe to come back to work."

Leo opened his mouth, as if to argue, but she cut him off.

"You will be fully reimbursed for any of the day's profits you may lose."

"Oh," he grumbled, "Alright then.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Special Forces were busy setting up their equipment and the team stood outside the building housing the electrolysis tanks, discussing their plan of action.

"Whatever it is, it's already proved that it's capable of killing," one of the slightly more senior looking soldiers noted, looking troubled.

"There's no doubt about it, I'm afraid. You're going to need military backup on this one," Jenny agreed, with a sidelong glance at Nick. He looked a little displeased at the thought, but seemed to know better than to try and argue when she was obviously making sense.

"I'll have my men attach themselves to each of you," Dunton decided, and his men moved to follow orders. Connor eyed their weapons hopefully as they picked them up, and caught Stephen's eye as the other man picked up a pistol.

"No," he said, grinning. "Definitely not."

"But-"

"You can have this instead."

Connor took the rucksack Stephen offered him grudgingly. Inside was his laptop, a radio, and various other equipment he'd seen fit to take with him. Perhaps he'd brought along too much, he thought, as he swung it over one shoulder. The thing was heavy. Abby, meanwhile, had picked up a tranquiliser gun and Nick armed himself with a pistol.

"Richards with Temple," Dunton ordered, gesturing at the soldier who had spoken up before. Obediently, he sidled closer to Connor. "Stevenson, you go with Hart. Biscuits, you've got Maitland. I'll go with Professor Cutter, and the rest of you can stay here with Ms Lewis as backup."

Dunton had been loading his assault rifle as he gave our his orders. Nick looked at him, raising an eyebrow slightly as the captain's men all obeyed orders. Catching each others' eye, Abby and Stephen grinned behind his back, sensing a power struggle.

Without waiting for any more input from Captain Dunton, Nick pushed open the heavy metal doors to the building. "Come on, then. Let's have a look."

Inside it was dark and uncomfortably warm, the silence permeated with the sound of creaking, shifting machinery. The air smelled of metal and burning, catching in the back of everyone's throats. Nick fumbled in the darkness, feeling along the wall for a lightswitch. Eventually Dunton, pulling down the night vision goggles he'd been wearing, pulled a torch out of his pocket and switched it on, illuminating a panel of switches a few inches to the left of Nick's hand. He pressed them and, slowly, light flickered into existence above them.

Almost at once they registered a problem. The ceiling was covered in exposed cables and piping, and some of it appeared to have been damaged. Several of the lights weren't working, casting the large room into a sort of twilight. Strange, angular shapes were just about visible in the semi-darkness; bits of machinery and god-knows what else. But one of the far corners seemed to be more brightly lit than anywhere else. Nick could just about make out the play of shifting, sparkling light on the ceiling and surrounding machines. And that could be caused by only one thing.

"Looks like we've found our anomaly," he said, starting forward. Dunton matched his pace exactly and, after a moment's hesitation, the others followed.

And so, together, the group made their way through the dimly lit building, trying to navigate their way to the far corner where the anomaly should be. Bits of machinery seemed to loom up towards them from the shadows, the pipes and cables giving the impression of a vaguely sinister, artificial jungle. The heat radiation off of the huge metal tanks around them was stifling, and everyone was on edge.

Suddenly there was a ripping sound, making everyone jump. Four rifles spun around to set their sights firmly on Connor, who was bringing up the rear. He cringed.

"Sorry, sorry! It was the Velcro - see?"

And he opened his rucksack the rest of the way to pull out a complicated looking handheld device.

"Mini anomaly detector," he explained, at Richards' curious look. "Measured magnetic field and radio interference. We're definitely heading the right way, it's getting stronger."

Finally, they rounded a corner and there it was; the anomaly, shimmering innocently in the gap between an electrolysis tank and the wall.

"What's that?" Abby cried, shining her torch into a shadow and making everyone jump. Something small and furry froze in terror as the beam of light illuminated it.

"S' just a stupid rat," Biscuits, the young soldier assigned to accompany her dismissed almost at once, but she frowned and shook her head.

"No, it's not. Looks more like a degu to me."

"It does, doesn't it?" Nick agreed, starting to smile. "But it's not. I've seen it before. In the Natural History Museum, in fact."

Stephen stood back as he launched into a detailed explanation of what it really was - some sort of early mammal, apparently. He was preoccupied with the thought of something large and dangerous, something in the building with them now. Watching them, even. It was enough to make you shudder, or at least make the heart rate quicken-

He jumped at a movement out f the corner of his eye, hand moving to the gun at his belt, but it was only another of the primitive rodents, scurrying back towards the anomaly and home. He turned back towards the others, heart rate returning to normal.

"So what's it likely to be?" Dunton was asking, looking between Nick and Connor.

"Dinosaurs were all dead by this point. Rise of the mammals and all that," the student said, not taking his eyes off of the rodents.

"The primary predators at the time would have been terror birds. They're probably the only creatures big enough to cause us a problem," Nick added, frowning slightly. He didn't seem all that convinced by his own words, and Stephen picked up on it. Weren't terror birds flightless? So why was there damage to the ceiling?

"Probably?" Dunton raised his eyebrows, apparently unsatisfied with the professor's reassurance.

Nick shrugged. "The fossil record is never exhaustive."

Stephen caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and nearly dismissed it as another of the innocuous little rodents before he registered its position; halfway up the sheer side of the nearby electrolysis tank.

"Trouble. Five o'clock," he warned, spinning around, but whatever it was had already gone. He didn't see it clearly, just a blur of movement, but if he was sure of anything at all it was that it had been no bird.

"Spread out," Dunton ordered, cocking his rifle. The others followed his lead. "Try to get a visual on this thing." Then there was a shout from Stevenson and everyone spun around to see the Special Forces man moving off in pursuit of something. Stephen went after him - weren't they meant to stick together, after all? - and Nick and Dunton followed.

That left Abby and Connor standing by the anomaly, sharing an uncertain look between them. The two soldiers with them looked equally torn between joining the pursuit and staying behind to make sure that nothing untoward happened to their charges.

"What do you think? Stay by the anomaly in case anything else comes through?" Connor suggested, looking uneasy. Abby shrugged, hefting her tranquiliser gun.

"You can. I'm going to see what's out there."

Connor's voice was a little high pitched with surprise as he protested. "What? But we don't know what's it could be!"

Abby snorted. "Well, no. That's the point."

Connor opened his mouth to protest but she was already gone.

* * *

Biscuits followed after the blonde he'd been assigned to as she headed off in the vague direction that the others had gone in, searching the area for any signs of life.

"Did you see where they went?" she turned to ask him, speaking in little more than a whisper.

He shrugged. "Nope. Haven't seen anything 'cept those prehistoric rats since we got here."

She frowned slightly, looking back at him as they continued to walk. "You sound disappointed."

"My first assignment," he told her, with another shrug, "I thought it would be a bit more exciting than this.

"You were hoping for a T-rex, then?" she smiled wryly and he realised for the first time that she was quite pretty.

He grinned. "Well, yeah. I reckon I've gotta see at least one proper dinosaur doing this."

She laughed softly. "You and Connor would get on.

He pulled a face. "What, the geek?"

That, he thought, had been a mistake. Her smile faded, amusement morphing into a look of disapproval. Abruptly, he shut his mouth. He didn't think he was being particularly rude, not really. She should hear the things that the other guys said about her team - about her, too - of an evening.

"So," she spoke again in an obvious attempt to break the newfound tension. "Why do hey call you 'Biscuits'?"

He snorted. "I don't think you wanna know."

* * *

Nick stepped carefully over the remains of a fallen light. He'd probably have tripped over it if Dunton hadn't quickly pointed it out with his torch, but the captain had already moved on before he had a chance to say thank you. Just doing his job, Nick supposed.

He stepped forwards, turning a slow circle to look up at the roof high above, where the light had once been fitted. What could have torn that down? Not a terror bird, not really. The thought was disconcerting.

There was the faintest of footsteps as Stephen approached from behind and immediately Dunton's gun was pointing in his direction, flicking between the two men as the other soldier came up beside him. It was a moment before Dunton lowered the weapon, and Stephen raised his eyebrows.

Nick rounded on the captain, looking slightly annoyed.

"Watch where you're pointing that bloody thing, will you?" The new Special Forces captain seemed a little too trigger happy for his liking.

Dunton regarded him coolly. "Just being alert, Professor. You never know, it could save your life."

"Really," Nick muttered, taking a step back to look up at the roof again. Then, out of nowhere, something impossibly heavy ploughed into his back. Dunton shouted, there was the sound of a gunshot, and the ground came up to meet him.

* * *

"I suppose," Connor said, as he and Richards waited by the anomaly, "That this must be pretty boring for you."

He was sitting down on a box he'd dragged from a nearby pile while the older soldier stood, one had resting protectively on his rifle.

Richards shrugged. "I'm quite used to surveillance work. It's all the same, really."

"Except when a dinosaur pops up?" Connor grinned.

"Except for that, yes," the soldier conceded with a smile. Connor's eyes lingered on his gun as he shifted it slightly in his grip, and he looked amused. "It's a M4."

"Ah." Connor's response told him that he had absolutely no idea what that meant. "So have you ever shot people and stuff?"

Richards grinned. "And stuff. I fought in the Gulf War."

"Oh." Connor's eyes were wide. "Cool."

And the younger man opened his mouth as if to ask another question, but at that moment the unmistakeable sound of gunshots rang out. Richards looked up, frowning.

Connor tensed, looking frightened. "Abby!"

A second later he was running, closely followed by Richards, in the direction of the gunshots.

It occurred to Connor, about a minute later, that this probably hadn't been the best plan of action. The sound of the struggle had died away almost at once, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad thing. Had the others dealt with the creature, or all been killed by it? There was no way of telling, but the silence that had descended left him with no idea which way to turn.

He skidded to a stop, looking around, and that was when he heard the footsteps. They were running right towards him. Richards had obviously noticed them too because he stepped closer to Connor, raising his gun, but it was Abby and Biscuits, no creature, who came running around the corner.

"Abby!" Connor's face broke into a relieved smile, but she seemed too busy to notice it.

"Do you know what's going on? Where are the others?" she asked, urgently.

"We haven't seen any sign of a creature. The anomaly's been quiet," Richards told her, businesslike. She pulled a face, looking worried.

"Split up," she decided. "Con, you go left. I'll go right. See if you can find Nick or Stephen."

"Wait, wait!" Connor protested as she started to leave. He'd only just managed to find her, and she was already disappearing off into the darkness again. "Who put you in charge?" he grumbled, when she looked back at him over her shoulder.

Her face broke into a grin. "Nobody. But you're going to listen, aren't you?"

He couldn't find an argument for that, because he _had _already started moving left with every intention of following what she had said, and her smile said that she had known this all along. Damn. With a shrug and a deep feeling of foreboding, he turned and started walking left.

At least he still had Richards. The older man was walking a step behind him, keeping an eye out for anything dangerous. He glanced backwards over his shoulder to see the soldier pulling a radio off of his belt, and almost stopped dead.

"You've got a radio," he said.

"Yes," Richards agreed.

"And Dunton has a radio? Stevenson and Biscuits?"

"Yes."

Connor stepped back, making a sound of disbelief low in his throat. "_And you didn't think to tell me until now?"_

Richards shrugged. "You didn't ask.

Connor just stared at him incredulously as he held the radio up to his mouth and pressed a button. Immediately it started to crackle.

"Captain Dunton, come in. This is Richards."

There was a long pause, in which Connor held his breath and felt pretty sure that Richards was doing the same. Finally, the random noise formed itself into words.

__

"… is Dunton… bit of a whiskey tango foxtrot situation… a location?"

Connor blinked in confusion at the scrambled transmission, and Richards frowned.

"I'm with Temple. As an estimate, our location is-"

But he broke of the transmission partway through, eyes following the path of movement of something behind Connor. The younger man froze, not daring to look behind him.

"Get behind me, no sudden moves. It's eyeing us up," Richards murmured, so quietly that Connor could barely hear him. "Seeing if we're a threat."

"Oh." Connor edged nervously towards Richards. Curiosity turned his head, and he caught sight of something both terrifying and horribly familiar. The creature was perched on the rim of the closest electrolysis tank, grinning face in full view as it cocked its head towards them. A future predator. And as he watched, every muscle in its body seemed to visibly tense as it readied itself to pounce.

Richards saw it too. "Run!" he hissed, and started to shoot.

Connor didn't wait to see if any of the shots hit their target. He'd seen these creatures before. He knew how fast they were, how resilient, and he also knew that if he didn't get out of here soon there was a high likelihood that he would end up being future-bat food.

So he did as he was told and ran away, hating every moment of it as he raced past bits of machinery and did his best not to trip over the occasional cables and fittings that were strewn across the floor. He was listening out for the sounds of Richards, or indeed the predator, following him, but so far nothing was. From somewhere behind he could hear the sound of Richards' gun going off, but then the shooting stopped. The silence weighed down on him, and he found that he didn't need to ask what had happened. There was no sound of Richards coming to find him, but mercifully he could see no sign of the creature either.

He stopped his headlong run through the building, bent over almost double as he fought to catch his breath. The hot air seemed to catch in his throat, difficult to breathe in, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a few long seconds (opened them again a moment later, because who knew what might be creeping up on him?).

As he straightened up and tried to take stock of where he was, it occurred to him for the first time that he was all alone. He breathed deeply, because it wouldn't do to panic in a situation like this, and that was when he heard a second volley of gunshots.

The sound was coming from close by, just on the other side of the closest electrolysis tank, and even as he started to walk towards the noise he picked up the sound of human voices. A man was speaking - that could be anyone, really, and then there was a surprised little shout that he could have recognised anywhere. It had to be Abby and Biscuits, then, and it sounded as though they had found the creature. Or it had found them.

A second later and he was running again, breath coming in short, sharp gasps throwing himself around the last corner and into the confusion. He spotted Abby first, sprawled across the floor, but even as he watched she was starting to pick herself up and reach for her tranquiliser gun. A few paces in front of her Biscuits was still standing, firing desperately at a grey shape as it dropped down towards them from above.

The thing moved fast - impossibly fast, capable even of dodging bullets, perhaps. Whether it was this or slightly dodgy aim on Biscuits' part, very few of his bullets actually seemed to connect with the creature, and when they were just flesh wounds, serving only to make it more angry.

It took a shot to the shoulder and its stride faltered for a moment. Biscuits started to grin, perhaps thinking that he had it, but then the creature was right there in front of him; too close, far too close. He fired, hitting it again, but its momentum carried it forwards into him and there was no hope then, not really. The creature killed like a terrier with a rat, ferocious and all too enthusiastic and maybe it really thought that this was all a game.

Connor looked to Abby and she was staring, horrified, at the spectacle as the creature stopped shaking Biscuits and let him go. He lay where he had been dropped and didn't move, didn't even breathe.

"Abby!" he hissed her name as the predator turned its attentions to them. She got up on her knees and picked up the tranq gun, holding it up to aim. Then she gave a little gasp of pain and almost dropped it, holding it one handed as she gritted her teeth against the pain in one wrist.

She shot at it, the familiar hiss of compressed air sounding as she fired a dart at the predator, but she wasn't holding the gun properly and her aim was a little off. The tip of the dart nicked the skin but didn't lodge in, falling to the ground when the creature took a step forward. Now it just looked angry.

As Connor watched it made a series of strange clicking sounds. Echolocation, he realised dimly. Judging the distance, so that it could pounce. This was it, then. His obituary would read 'eaten by a giant future bat in Wales' but of course it wouldn't, Jenny would have to come up with a cover story and they'd probably say he died doing something stupid and that would be just typical. But he didn't want Abby to die, too.

The thing jumped. Connor dropped and felt its claws rake at his jacket as it overshot its mark, mercifully failing to take hold.

"Can't you shoot it?" he shouted at Abby as the predator landed, slid a few feet on the smooth floor, and spun around.

"I'm out of darts," she hissed back, fumbling with her tranq gun, and that had been a mistake because the predator cocked its head at her, evaluating her as a target.

Connor's evasive movement had brought him to Biscuits body and his eyes fell on the rifle, lying discarded next to the soldier's outstretched hand. It was heavy in his hands as he picked it up, turning it over

"Oi!" he shouted, distracting the predator as it readied itself to leap at Abby. Which wasn't really a good idea, seeing as he had no idea how to use the gun. He fumbled with it, trying to work out how to take off the safety, but he didn't even know how you were supposed to hold it. Abby was shouting something at him, but he couldn't make out the words and the creature was so close now. He held it up, aiming at the predator as it turned to him, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Nothing whatsoever and oh, he was buggered now. He could have sworn that the predator looked triumphant as it padded towards him, apparently reassured that its prey would not be getting away now. Doing the only thing he could think of, he chucked the gun as hard as he could at the creature, hitting it in the face. It reeled back, surprised, then shook its head and snarled. Oh. That had done a _lot_ of good, then.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the predator gathered itself to pounce, just a few feet in front of him now, but it never reached him.

A volley of gunshots went off, startlingly close, and he felt something come to rest against his feet. It was the creature, the back of its head irreparably damaged by bullets and no longer breathing. He let his breath out in a shaky sigh, looking up. Behind the predator he could see Abby getting to her feet, frowning as she tried to flex her injured wrist, and behind her he spotted Stephen, Nick and the two remaining Special Forces men. As they lowered their guns, it became obvious what had happened. And how close it had been.

__

Jesus.

Nick Cutter was the proud owner of a splitting headache. It wasn't doing anything for his good mood.

When the future predator had pounced on him back inside the building it had misjudged the distance slightly, landing on him but not managing to get a grip before its momentum carried it over his head, at which point Dunton had managed to scare it off by shooting at it. It had still knocked him flying through, and he'd managed to whack his head on the way down. Bloody fantastic.

Still, they'd dealt with the creature problem. The future predator was dead, and he'd told Jenny that she could arrange for the body to be taken back to the ARC for examination with great relish.

In fact, the only thing he wasn't too happy about (apart from the headache, of course) was the fact that somehow the press had managed to find out that something was going on at Anglesey Aluminium, and had apparently sent a reporter along to do some research.

Nick spotted the man, dressed smartly in a grey suit, apparently trying to corner Connor. His former student looked rather uncomfortable, and as Nick walked over he could hear him speaking.

"No, I really don't think that's a good idea," Connor was saying, in an attempt to brush the man off. An attempt that wasn't working, clearly, because the reporter was being persistent.

"Really, it won't take a moment. I just want a quick word," he was protesting, and Nick frowned slightly.

"My colleague isn't available for interview he announced, walking over. Connor looked relieved. "None of us are," he added pointedly, and looked around as Jenny walked over, having noticed what was going on.

"Hello," she said politely, holding her had out for him to shake, but behind her professionalism she looked disconcerted. The reporter didn't appear too comfortable too; he looked rather put out now that everyone seemed to have noticed him. "Jenny Lewis, Home Office."

"Ah," the reporter said, "And I'm-"

"Mick Harper, evening news," Jenny interrupted him with a frosty smile, "We've met before, haven't we?"

"Have we? Oh yes, yes, I remember now. Well, it was nice to meet you," the Harper was back pedalling wildly now, clearly impatient to get away. "I see it's not a good time, so I'll just get out of your way."

"Thank you. We would appreciate it," Jenny said, quite nicely, but there was an undercurrent of something in her manner that had the man all but running off in his haste to leave. Nick stood and watched as he walked away to a parked car down the road, climbing into the passenger seat next to a red-haired woman. He'd barely closed the door when the car pulled away, disappearing around a corner. Once they had gone, he turned back to Jenny.

"I thought you weren't letting the press anywhere near us until everything had been sent back to the ARC?" he gestured pointedly at the body of the future predator, zipped into a body bag, that was being carried to the Special Forces van.

Jenny frowned. "I didn't. I don't know how he found out to come here."

"Well, who knows we're here? The employees?"

"No." Her expression of confusion deepened. "Just the foreman, and I've already spoken to him. Scared him into silence, really. Apart from him, the only other person who knows what's going on here is Lester. And you know what he's like about things getting out, he'd have a fit if he found out that civilians had been around when the body was being moved."

That was probably true, Nick thought. Lester was a government employee, and therefore was a fan of the theory that it was in the nation's best interests to keep _everything _a secret.

"I'll look into this Harper when I get back to my office, find out who he works for," Jenny decided, "In the meantime, I think we can all be heading home."

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

****

A/N:

Not such a long wait for this one, eh? Thank you, Flabagash! As always, any and all reads and reviews are greatly appreciated.

First things first, Stephen wanted a shower. Then he wanted to sleep for about a week. Part of him (the rational, sensible part of him that usually said things like 'brush your teeth' and 'don't have that seventh pint') realised that this was highly unlikely; it was almost guaranteed that there would be another anomaly soon, and besides he needed to pop out for a bit of shopping and probably go to the gym. The rest of him told this part, quite firmly, to _shut up_. There now. He wasn't going mad at all.

He turned the key in the lock and opened the door to his flat. As he stepped inside he sighed, rubbing his face and letting his bag fall heavily to the floor. He'd bother about picking it up later; for now, he was exhausted. His shoulder was aching from the recoil on his gun, a sure sign that he hadn't been holding it correctly earlier, but he'd been in far too much of a hurry to shoot the damn creature before it disembowelled Connor and followed him up with Abby as dessert.

He left his clothes in a trail from his bed to the bathroom and climbed into the shower, where the hot water soothed his aches and pains. The shower screen slowly fogged up until it became opaque, blocking out his view of anything outside the shower cubicle until it may as well not exist anymore. And he could deal with that, really. All he wanted in the world at that moment was the hot water.

It wasn't until he nearly fell asleep leaning up against the glass that he realised that he probably should get out at some point before a group of angry environmentalists came knocking at his door, berating him for wasting water. That or he'll run his water bill right up. He grabbed a towel from the airing cupboard, wrapped it around his waist, and pushed open the bathroom door.

His bag was leaning up against the side of the bed and he frowned faintly. Had he left it there? Must have done, he thought, and sat down. Sitting just led on to laying, and before he knew it he was asleep.

"Come on, sleeping beauty."

It felt like just a few minutes later when a familiar voice roused him, and he opened his eyes to look into the face of an amused looking Helen Cutter.

"Helen?" he blinked, sitting up.

She sighed dramatically, dropping down onto the bed next to him. "I thought you'd _never_ wake up. I was getting bored." She pouted, a little childishly, but her eyes were hard. He smiled indulgently at her, but that sensible little voice in his head was back and it was whispering 'be careful'.

"Ah, you were always impatient," he said lightly, watching her. She'd settled herself, apparently completely at ease, with her legs across his but he could see that she was tense and there was a look in her eyes like she wanted something.

"Hmm." She made a speculative little noise, watching him. "Do you love me, Stephen?"

There was an edge to her voice and he raised his eyebrows at the question, smiling slightly like this was a game. And it was, really, wasn't it?

"Why?" he leaned forward, closer to her. "What do you want?"

"What makes you think I want something?" The look on Helen's face was predatory as she closed the distance between him, leaning forwards to kiss him, hard. He chuckled against her mouth and she pulled back, narrowing her eyes.

"You _always_ want something. So come on, what is it?"

She continued to watch him for a few long seconds, her expression serious - speculative.

"Alright," she said finally, evenly. "I want _you_."

"Me?" he repeated, still speaking lightly as he tried to work out what she was up to.

She nodded, smiling wryly. "You know I've always wanted you," she murmured, moving so that she was straddling him, pinning his waist down to the bed. And oh, that was interesting. (_But, _that little part of him said incredulously, _had she really travelled millions of years for a shag?_)

She hadn't.

"I want you," she whispered into his ear as she moved against him, "to come with me."

He looked up at her. "You've asked before. My answer hasn't changed."

"But you don't see," she insisted, "You don't know what's happening. It's not safe anymore."

"What isn't?" He tried to sit up, but she shifted her weight to keep him down. Evidently, she was going to keep him right where she wanted him.

"The anomalies. The creatures coming through aren't the only things causing damage, Stephen."

"So what else is?"

"Time isn't really meant to have big holes in it," she said dryly, looking down at him. "It becomes unstable. Bad things are going to happen, Stephen. But it's alright, just come with me and we'll be safe."

He heard the faint ring of the home phone from the kitchen and looked past her, frowning slightly. She didn't move.

"Ignore it," she told him, an order. Then she smiled and he was reminded inexplicably of the perpetually grinning face of the future predator. "It will be just the two of us. I know where we can go. We'll be safe, just you and me."

"How do you know all of this?" he asked, disconcerted. Her answering grin only served to unsettle him more.

"It doesn't matter," she told him firmly. The phone was still ringing.

He got up, extracting himself from her grip, and went into the kitchen. She followed him, jumping up and padding soundlessly after him. The caller's name was displayed on the handset; it read "Nick".

"Don't answer it," she warned him, but he had already picked it up.

__

"New anomaly,"

Nick's voice told him, without bothering to say hello. He groaned faintly into the handset.

"Where?"

__

"Lake District. No reports of any creatures yet, but it only opened five minutes ago. The others are already on their way to the ARC. Come on, get your coat on."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

He put the phone down and turned around. Helen was standing right behind him, and now there was no smile at all on her face.

"You shouldn't go," she told him simply as he walked past her, picking up his jacket and shrugging it on. Where were his shoes? Oh, in the doorway. When he picked up his bag from beside the bed she took hold of his arm.

"Come on. Don't tell me you're going to go running off to Nick the moment he snaps his fingers?" Her voice was scornful, but there was something else in her eyes. She looked almost worried. He began to wonder; had she worked out why the anomalies were coming and when? Perhaps she knew what was coming, where the next anomaly to open would lead, and she was trying to stop him from getting involved. It had to be something dangerous then, perhaps more dangerous than anything they'd had before.

The others were already on their way, Nick had said. They would all be going to face whatever this anomaly threw out, with or without him. And… Well, that was his mind made up then.

"Sorry, Helen," he kissed her on the cheek, trying not to notice when her eyes narrowed furiously, "Got to go."

He slammed the front door behind him.

* * *

Jenny put her phone back into her handbag and heaved a satisfied little sigh. The whole area surrounding the anomaly was now officially out of bounds for tourists and hikers because of a rock slide, making the ascent route from Wasdale Head to the summit of Scafell Pike impassable. That was the official story, anyway, and the one that had just been sent to the local authorities. So now, with the possibility of civilians stumbling across the anomaly dealt with, all that was left was to see whether there had been any change.

She walked down towards where the rest of the team and several soldiers from Special Forces were waiting by the anomaly. None of them appeared to have been eaten while she was making her phone calls, which was a good sign.

"What's the situation?" she asked, coming to stand next to Nick.

"So far nothing has come through and it's been open for nearly an hour." He paused, then shrugged. "We're hoping that means that nothing will come through at all."

"Ah. Well that's a good sign, then." Perhaps her job would be surprisingly simple today then, with no marauding monsters to construct cover stories for.

"Connor's been making some observations," Nick added, as Connor came bounding up to them, closely followed by Abby. She was frowning, holding her hands over her ears.

"Professor! The anomaly has an amazingly strong magnetic field. Look!" Connor stepped away from them, closer to the anomaly, and pulled a pen out of his pocket, holding it only loosely. At once it shot out of his grip and disappeared into the anomaly.

"All the anomalies have a magnetic field, Connor," Nick reminded him, frowning slightly. Connor shook his head impatiently.

"I know, but I've been measuring it and my handheld anomaly detector is measuring nearly one point seven tesla… that's like being inside a slightly outdated MRI scanner."

"It nearly pulled my earrings out," Abby added, rubbing one ear gingerly. One of her wrists was wrapped in a pressure bandage from the skirmish earlier. One of the medics at the ARC had looked at it and deemed that it was only sprained, not broken. Nick had offered her the rest of the day off, but she'd told him that he was being silly and turned up anyway. She was probably starting to regret it now that nothing interesting had happened and she had earache to go with her sore wrist.

Jenny watched as wandered back towards the SUV and climbed into the back seat, settling herself down. Connor was sitting on the boot - he'd get a dusty arse if he wasn't careful, the vehicle was _filthy _- and fiddling with his handheld anomaly detector. He looked up, a little surprised, as Stephen approached and hopped up onto the boot next to him. She couldn't hear their conversation, but suddenly Connor grinned widely and Stephen rolled his eyes, good naturedly, at him.

"Miss Lewis?"

Jenny looked up as Dunton approached, holding his radio in his hand.

"Yes?"

"We've found a hiker trying to get to the anomaly site. Seemed to think that she'd be able to climb the mountain despite the rockslide. You want to talk to her?"

Jenny sighed. "Yes, I suppose I should. Where is she?"

"We've got her over by the van. Out of sight of the anomaly," he added, to reassure her.

"Right. Thank you."

Jenny walked over to the van, just about managing not to break her ankles on the rocky and uneven ground. She rounded the corner to come face to face with the person waiting impatiently on the other side of the van. It was a young woman, kitted out in hiking gear, and currently glaring at one of Dunton's men as he tried to explain that _no, _there was no way that she could carry on with her hike.

"Oh!" The girl turned around, caught sight of Jenny, and froze.

Jenny recognised her, too. It was the girl who had followed Stephen out of the woods at the anomaly with the future-dogs. She raised her eyebrows as the girl shot her a sheepish smile.

"Hello! I keep bumping into your lot, don't I?"

Jenny regarded her with a look of disapproval. "Yes, it seems you do. Can you tell me what you're doing here?"

The girl, Lucy, raised her eyebrows and gestured down to her hiking boots. "I was going for a walk. That's not a crime now, is it?"

"No, but this path has been blocked off. There's been a rockslide."

Lucy craned her head to look past Jenny, who frowned. "It doesn't look like there's been a rockslide," she commented, and Jenny's frown only deepened.

"It's further up, the whole area is unstable. It would be dangerous to go any further."

"Oh." Lucy shrugged, looking disappointed. "That's a shame. Can't I just have a look, though?"

"No, I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment. I expect that you'll be able to carry on with your walk tomorrow."

Lucy had just opened her mouth as if to argue when one of Dunton's men came up behind Jenny.

"Anomaly's just closed, nothing came through," he muttered, so that Lucy would not be able to hear. Jenny smiled.

"Right, thank you. Well, I've just heard that the area has been given the all clear. We'll be off and you can continue with your walk." She gave the girl a brief, satisfied smile before turning to walk back to the others.

As she left, though, she could have sworn she saw a brief look of disappointment on the girl's face.


	7. Chapter 7

****

A/N:

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone. This is a bit of a quiet chapter, I'm afraid, but no less important in the long run. And I can promise you that the next instalment will be all-action.

"I think," Nick Cutter said decisively, "That this anomaly needs to be investigated."

James Lester sighed into his hand and contemplated how much trouble he would get into with those higher up if he just dismissed the professor and his team to do what they wanted, so long as they just _stopped pestering him._ Quite a lot, probably, considering the amount of damage they seemed to be capable of doing. He really should talk to them about that one day.

"And _I_ think," he interrupted, before Cutter could get across more of his no doubt convincing argument, "That we should focus on the anomalies that are actually dangerous, before anyone else gets killed."

There's a silence at that and James thought _ah, that shut you up._

"The man's death was put down to an escaped venomous snake someone was keeping as a pet. A green mamba, I believe." He looked at Jenny and she nodded at him. "The _Euchambersia _responsiblehas since been destroyed."

"What?" The girl, Maitland, frowned. Cutter was looking at him too, as if for an explanation.

"We could have learnt a lot from that creature," he protested.

"Yes, and we probably would have lost half of our technicians in the process. It was aggressive, and we're not here to start our own Jurassic Park," James dismissed.

He glanced at the pile of notes on the desk in front of him and frowned.

"The three deaths in Regents Park on Wednesday have been put down to an escaped bear." That would be more paperwork for him, then. Fantastic.

"With all due respect," Hart cut in, his tone anything but respectful, "We've had nine anomalies in the past week, seven of them the single one that keeps recurring. Don't you think we should at least send someone through to see what's on the other side?"

James frowned. "How do you know that it's the same one?"

And now it was Temple's turn to speak up for the first time this meeting.

"They all have a slightly different magnetic field. I've started recording them," he explained, enthusiastic, "And this one has the strongest field I've seen yet. Easy to recognise, really."

He raised his eyebrows, looking hopeful. James looked around the room, and was met by the sight of the team displaying a united front. They were all keen, it seemed to explore the _single _bloody harmless anomaly that kept appearing in the midst of dozens of dangerous ones. Sending a team through would mean getting them military assistance, weaponry and equipment - and all of that cost money. Money that they couldn't afford to be throwing around on useless ventures while elsewhere anomalies were opening and people were _dying_.

"I'm afraid it's just not feasible. We haven't got room in the budget for unnecessary excursions. Unless something comes through, this anomaly is to be kept under surveillance and left well alone."

Five minutes later he called an end to the meeting and stood up, watching the others grumble about his decision as they left. He didn't have time to care, though. Not when there was paperwork to do.

* * *

Connor jumped as something heavy clattered onto the desk above him. Stephen watched, faintly amused, as a surprised face appeared from somewhere in the mess of wiring and components that made up the Anomaly Detector. He gestured to the object on the desk, and Connor's eyes widened at the sight of the pistol that lay there.

"I get the feeling I'm going to regret offering," Stephen started, with a slight smile, "But do you fancy learning to use this thing?"

Connor shot up at once, grinning. "Yeah!"

"Thought you might say that."

Ten minutes later they were in the ARC's indoor shooting range, a room that Connor had never seen the inside of before, judging by the way that he was looking curiously all around as they stepped in. Stephen had practiced in here a few times, sometimes with the military guys and sometimes on his own. On a couple of occasions he'd dragged Nick or Abby along with him too, but never Connor. He didn't think that anyone had ever considered the idea that the younger man would need to know how to shoot before - Connor himself had said that he was just technical backup - but after the Anglesey anomaly a week ago Stephen was starting to reconsider.

If he hadn't found them when he did, he had no doubt that the creature would have made a meal out of Connor and followed him up with Abby as dessert. And that was a thought that left him cold. So yes, it was high time that Connor learnt to defend himself.

"Right. This is a _Glock 17_, semi-automatic pistol," Stephen held it out to Connor, who took it almost reverently, looking a little uncertain but extremely pleased.

"Okay," he held it in one hand, feeling the weight, getting used to the feel of it.

"This is the safety," Stephen pointed out a small inner lever in the trigger. "You press that, then pull the trigger. Pulling the trigger unlocks the two internal safeties, and-"

"Fires, gotcha."

"Yeah," Stephen agreed, amused,

The next hour was spent, somewhat tediously, going over how to load and unload the weapon and how to dismantle it and put it back together again. At first Connor was pretty terrible, dropping the magazine and fumbling over the parts, but each time Stephen told him to repeat every stage he improved a little, and by the end of the hour he was managing to do everything, if a little slowly, without any real mistakes.

Then Stephen pointed out the front and rear sights on the weapon, and how the rear one could be adjusted for different conditions, fairly sure that Connor was just nodding and agreeing with the last bit.

Finally he gestured at the targets lining the back wall and Connor's face lit up, just like he'd known it would.

"Come on then. Let's see what your shooting's like," he grinned.

Connor's first shot went wide; very wide, and struck against the wall behind the targets. Connor shot him a grimace over his shoulder and Stephen shrugged, mouthing 'again'.

So Connor did, and Stephen blinked in surprise. He hadn't hit the bullseye but he'd come pretty damn close, well within the target. Connor's face registered equal surprise, and then he grinned widely, leaving Stephen to wonder what sort of monster he had just created.


	8. Chapter 8

****

A/N:

Thank you for the kind comments. Unfortunately updates may be fewer and further in between now that I am back at college, but rest assured that I am still writing. Just a bit slower than usual

Abby walked across the car park, hefting her bag up higher onto her shoulder. There hadn't been any anomalies yet, but Connor had been insistent that he had work to do on his anomaly detector, so she'd given him a lift and come in herself. Besides, Nick had hinted that they would be having a closer look at the body of the _Euchambersia _today if they had time, and that was something that she didn't want to miss. She'd always had a bit of an interest in venomous reptiles, Gila Monsters and Komodo Dragons, and despite the fact that _Euchambersia _wasn't _strictly_ a reptile, it's autopsy was something she wanted to see.

Her thoughts were distracted by the sound of a car alarm going off behind her. _Her _car alarm.

She spun around, fully expecting to encounter a group of kids scratching the paintwork or something equally stupid. What she didn't expect to see was an anomaly opening up a few feet behind it. And, as she watched, her Mini was dragged backwards and into the anomaly.

She stood, staring, as the bonnet finally disappeared through the pattern of dancing light, gone without a trace. Her parking space stood empty, as though nothing had ever been there. An anomaly had never pulled anything that big through it before. And she knew she'd had the handbrake on.

"Cutter!" She turned and ran for the building.

Nick was standing next to the Anomaly Detector when she ran in, Connor seated in front of it and tapping away at the keyboard. The lights on top were flashing, and the alarm was beginning to sound, bringing Stephen running over from the direction of the gym. They all looked up when she stopped beside them and doubled over, catching her breath.

"There's an anomaly," she gasped, "In the car park!"

"We know," Nick told her, glancing over his shoulder as Lester walked towards them, glancing at his watch.

"You have a location?" he asked, glancing up at the screen as Connor messed around getting readings.

"Just outside the building. And I've looked at the readings. It looks like our recurring anomaly is back, and stronger." Connor's voice was a strange mixture of anxiety and excitement.

"Never mind that," Abby snapped, cutting in before anyone else could speak over her, "It's just pulled my car through!"

Nick looked up, frowning. "It's what?"

"Pulled my car through," Abby repeated, glaring at Stephen and Connor as they laughed incredulously, "As in it's disappeared. Into the anomaly."

She looked at Lester, who gave a long-suffering sigh. "I suppose you'll be needing a new one?"

"That or you send someone through to get it back," Abby said, and Nick looked at her, suddenly smiling.

"What was it, Abby? A classic Mini Cooper? How much do they sell for these days?"

"In good condition?" she asked, catching on. "Upwards of three grand, I'd expect. Some as much as six."

Nick glanced at Lester, who was very deliberately not looking at him.

"How does that compare to the cost of sending a team through?" he wondered.

"It's got to be more expensive," Stephen added, joining in.

Lester sighed, looking between the three of them. They all looked back, quietly hopeful. For a long moment he said nothing at all, then he closed his eyes and waved a hand dismissively at them.

"Yes, fine. You can go and get the car back."

* * *

"Remind me why you're doing this again?"

Jenny crossed her arms, watching as Nick and his team kitted themselves out as they prepared to go through the anomaly. With them were four SAS men, including Captain Dunton. Richards and Biscuits were conspicuous in their absence, and Jenny didn't pretend to know any of the soldiers very well but she felt sure that they were a little more subdued than usual because of it. Nick, Stephen, Connor and Abby, however, were obviously excited.

Nick looked up at her from where he and Stephen were bent over, pulling their weapons out of their cases, and smiled.

"We're getting the car back, of course. There's no telling what damage it could do in the past or future," he told her.

She just raised her eyebrows. "Nothing to do with just wanting to see what's on the other side, then?"

He smiled. "Of course not.

"Ah." She nodded, shooting him a disbelieving smile.

She stood around, trying to look clued-in and interested and watched (supervised, that was what one called it) while the others made themselves ready for their trip into the unknown. Dunton and his men were armed to the teeth, obviously expecting trouble. Abby held her usual tranquiliser gun, and both Stephen and Nick were armed. Connor had a weapon too, a small handgun, and he wore an inane grin as he tucked it into the holster Dunton had given him for his belt.

"Right. Let's move," Dunton said once they were all ready, with all loose metal object restrained and jewellery removed. He and Stevenson went through the anomaly first, seeming to flicker oddly for a moment in the shimmering light before they were gone. Nick went next, followed by Stephen then Abby and Connor. The last pair of Dunton's men brought up the rear.

Jenny watched until they too had disappeared and went to turn around in search of someone who could bring a coffee out to the carpark. A horribly familiar _click_ stopped her.

"You too, sweetie," said a man's voice from behind her, and she felt the barrel of a gun press against the back of her head. "We don't want anyone left behind."

* * *

"Whoa."

Nick heard Connor's exclamation from behind him but didn't bother looking around. He was too busy trying to work out where they were. _When_ they were.

At first, it looked as though they could have stepped through the anomaly and into any other normal street. The buildings lining each side of the road seemed to be built out of modern materials, modern to their time at least. They were a style he hadn't encountered before and the cars parked in the road were models he wasn't familiar with but then again he was neither an architect or a specialist in automobiles. All in all, things looked pretty normal. But that was before you noticed the damage.

Everywhere looked modern and stylish, but it was clearly falling into disrepair.

The windows looking out onto the road were broken, and now that he looked some of the cars were smashed up pretty badly. Rubbish and unidentified materials, bits and pieces of something, were strewn across the street. It looked almost as though there had been a riot.

"Ohh."

Connor was looking up at the cityscape. The others followed his gaze. Faintly, Nick heard Stephen swear, and almost at once he saw why. There on the horizon, its windows smashed and structure damaged, stood the Gherkin.

"We're in London," Nick breathed.

Next to him, Abby was frowning.

"These buildings aren't here, not in our time," she said, turning in a slow circle. And it was true; the skyline was dominated by skyscrapers. A couple of them were familiar. Most of them were not. "Look around," she added, "I think we're near Fenchurch Street."

Stephen whistled. "It's home, but not as we know it."

"You got that right."

Everyone jumped at the new voice, turning around to the sight of more people emerging through the anomaly. A woman came first, followed by _Jenny_. A dark haired man brought up the rear.

The woman was familiar and also happened to have a gun cocked towards them. Nick heard Stephen say, surprised "Lucy?" but that paled into insignificance because the man was that journalist and _he was holding a gun to Jenny's head_.

He opened his mouth to ask what on earth was going on but before he could even get the words out a volley of gunshots rang out an he ducked instinctively, reaching out to pull the others down with him. The shooting only lasted for a few seconds before silence took hold and he lifted his head, looking around.

Dunton and his men were on the ground where they had fallen, and Nick didn't have to look too closely at the bullet holes in their heads to see that they were dead. Lucy was down too but she was alive, clutching her chest and wheezing.

"God." She struggled into a sitting position, shrugging off her coat to reveal what appeared to be some sort of Kevlar vest, complete with embedded bullets, underneath. Seeing Nick in front of her, she smiled and her gun came up again.

He heard a click as Stephen removed his safety, ready to shoot, but she held up a hand.

"Ah, ah. Shoot me and the PR woman dies."

Nick's eyes flicked up to her journalist friend, back towards the anomaly. He held a gun in each hand. One had just shot at the SF guys, but the other was pressed into Jenny's throat.

"Don't shoot," Nick said quickly, and Stephen lowered his gun. "What do you want?"

"Your weapons," Lucy ordered. "Slide them towards me. Slowly."

Grudgingly, the team did as they were told. Once everyone was disarmed, she smiled grimly.

"The creatures will have heard all that. Come on, we'd better get inside."

Held at gunpoint still, Lucy and Mick Harper marched them towards one of the nearby buildings. It looked fairly innocuous, just like any other modern office block. But the security system was obviously still working, and Lucy had to lean in over an iris scanner to get the doors to open.

"If you'd care to step inside," Mick gave a wry smile, gesturing towards the entrance with the hand currently not holding a gun to Jenny's head.

"Not until you-" Nick started to say, but was interrupted by a cry of pain from Mick. There was a flash of movement and Jenny was backing away from him, gun in her hand, while he sank to his knees, wheezing. It quickly became obvious that she had targeted a _very _sensitive part of his anatomy.

"I'd rather not go anywhere, thanks all the same, she said coolly, pointing her gun down at him.

"It's a bit too late for that." Lucy was looking past all of them, a strange little smile on her face. "Your ticket home has just vanished."

Nick spun around, searching for the anomaly, but she was right. It was nowhere to be seen. It had disappeared, leaving them stranded. Brilliant.

To complicate matters further, there was a sudden crunching sound from further down the road and Nick's eyes fell upon the all too familiar shape of a future predator as it jumped up onto the roof of a ruined car.

It seemed to notice them too because a moment later it fired off a series of its odd clicking sounds and jumped nimbly down, heading straight towards them.

"Get in. Now!" Lucy cried and they all piled inside, slamming the heavy metal door behind them.

"Where are we?" Nick gasped, extricating himself from the tangle of arms and legs that Abby, Connor and Stephen had become. They appeared to be in the foyer, all done out in clean lines of metal and glass, complete with waiting area with expensive looking furniture. Everything spoke of efficiency and importance. It also looked as though a mammoth had been set loose, judging by the smashed up desks and paintings ripped from the walls.

Nick wondered what sort of life he must lead when the idea of a giant ice-age elephant running rampant didn't seem all that strange.

Mick immediately went to work, fiddling with the security systems inside the door. Nick sincerely hoped that he was ensuring that nothing outside could get in. There was more than just future predators out there now, judging by the roaring and sounds of a scuffle.

"They'll have smelled the blood," the journalist who wasn't a journalist told him, smiling a little apologetically. "I'm sorry we couldn't retrieve the bodies."

"Why did you kill them?" Nick asked incredulously.

The answer he got gave nothing away. "We couldn't have them getting in the way."

"Of what?" he asked, but the man had already turned away.

Lucy was watching them expectantly when he turned around, and when she had everyone's attention she smiled, spreading her arms dramatically.

"Welcome to Sommerfield Superluminal."


	9. Chapter 9

__

"Welcome to Sommerfield Superluminal."

Connor snorted. "Sounds like a hi-tech supermarket."

At once Lucy's eyes sought him out and she smiled at him, disconcertingly. He fell silent at once, averting his eyes.

"What is this place?" Nick asked, looking around. There was a set of double doors on the far wall, a stairwell just about visible through two small panes of reinforced glass, and a locked door stood in the wall behind what appeared to be the reception desk. The building's décor gave no clue as to its purpose.

Connor raised his eyebrows as he noticed the security on each of the doors. They were metal, just like the entrance door, and all had a keypad set into them. As well as that, it appeared that they could be fastened manually with heavy bolts. Just what _was _this place?

"This is just the boring bit," Lucy told them, watching the curious glances. "Offices and al that. All the interesting stuff is going on downstairs."

Connor began to wonder if she wasn't just a little bit manic. And Mick was just sanding there, looking as though all this was nothing out of the ordinary at all. They were both mad, then. And they had brought the team here to - to… He had no idea.

Lucy had walked over to the door to the stairs and stood, cautiously peering through the window. "Below our feet is the world's first tachyon generator." She turned to them, and grinned. "We call it TAG."

A silence met her words. Confused faces looked back at her, with one exception. Connor's expression was a mixture of confusion and something much like delight.

"Tachyon generator," he repeated, slowly. Lucy looked at him again, her eyes narrowing speculatively as she nodded.

"You know what that is?"

"Yeah," he laughed, then hesitated. "Well, sort of. I don't know how it would work or anything like that, but I know what a tachyon is meant to be…"

The red-haired woman glanced at Mick, looking strangely pleased.

"I'm sorry," Abby interjected, not sounding sorry at all, "But _what _is going on here?"

At once Lucy fixed her with a wide-eyed stare, but it was her accomplice, Mick, who answered. "A tachyon is a particle. A theoretical one, up until we started experimenting. They have some rather special properties. They travel faster than the speed of light, for one."

Abby frowned. "But that's impossible." She glanced around at the others. "Isn't it?"

Connor just shrugged, and Mick smiled. "It's not. Two years ago we built a tachyon detector, TAD. It registered tachyons, but more than that - it started spontaneously emitting them."

"You made particles that travel faster than light?" Nick sounded incredulous.

"Not with any degree of reliability, which is why we built TAG," Lucy answered him, quite calmly. Then she frowned. "But things got a bit out of control. The tachyons weren't meant to violate causality. But they did."

"You mean," horror and realisation were dawning in Nick's voice, "That these anomalies - they were made by your machine?"

"You call them anomalies?" She asked, not answering his question. "That's… sweet."

"What are they, then?" Stephen's voice held an edge of hostility.

"Mistakes. Breaches." Mick hesitated, not quite meeting their eyes, before he added, "Wormholes."

"Wormholes?" Nick repeated slowly. Mick nodded, perfectly serious, and Connor laughed nervously.

"Hang on," Jenny was frowning. "If your machine is making these things, why can't you just turn it off?"

"Ah." Mick looked at Lucy, saying nothing. She grimaced.

"It's not that simple."

It never was.

"What's stopping you?" Nick asked. Or he would have, if there hadn't been a sudden crash against the front door, drowning out the rest of his sentence.

Lucy turned to Mick. "Will the door hold?"

He pulled a face. "The doorframes up here aren't reinforced like the ones downstairs. It depends on what's trying to get in this time."

There was another crash, and the doorframe juddered alarmingly. Lucy and Mick looked around, quickly making a decision.

"Come on, quickly!" Lucy told them, running for the reception desk and vaulting over it. She spun the circular release on the door behind to open it, quickly stepping inside. The others followed her, Connor rolling in after bungling his leap over the desk. They were only just in time; as Lucy closed the door they caught a glimpse of something large and scaly barging its way into the foyer.

"This room has no windows. We should be safer in here," Mick said. The walls around them were lined with grey filing cabinets' the room was obviously used for storage.

"Since we're stuck in here, I think you need to tell us what's really going on." Stephen was looking at the two of them, eyebrows raised.

"Ooh, it's you with the gun," Lucy started to smile brightly at him, but Jenny cleared her throat pointedly and she looked away. "Right, yes."

"It's not just a case of switching the machine off," Mick spoke up. "If we could, we would have done it months ago."

"So what's stopping you?" asked Nick.

"We don't have the access."

"I thought the machine was yours?" Jenny asked sharply.

Lucy rubbed the back of her neck. Mick said nothing, and would not meet Jenny's gaze. There was a brief silence, and then Lucy sighed.

"We do work here, really," she said earnestly. "But… We didn't build the machine."

"But you do know how to run it?" There was a hint of desperation in Nick's voice as he looked between them.

"No," Mick admitted, his mouth a thin line. "Not strictly. We don't have the authority to turn it on or off."

"So who does?" To say that Jenny looked displeased would be something of an understatement.

"The people who do are dead," Mick said simply. "The machine caused an anomaly shortly after switch-on. Creatures came through and killed everyone in the control room." He took a breath and his voice wasn't completely steady when he added, "We're the only ones left."

"All the damage outside - that was from creatures?" Stephen gestured towards the door.

Mick nodded. "We've been in your time. You've been getting an anomaly every couple of weeks, on average. We're getting dozens every day. They're all over the country - maybe the world, I don't know. We lost contact after the first couple of days."

A shocked silence met his words, then Nick laughed humourlessly.

"So why bring us here? A bit of sightseeing - here you go, thought you might like to witness the end of the world? Or have you got something else in mind?"

"Don't be silly," Lucy frowned at him. "We need you to help us turn it off."

And she turned her head, looking straight at Connor.

"What?" he squawked. "Me?"

"Yes," Lucy said, ignoring his concern. "We can't get into the system to initiate shutdown because we don't have the codes. But you can."

"No I can't!" he protested. "I don't know anything about tachyons or particle generators. I did A-Level physics, that's it. I've got no idea how your machine works."

"Ah," said Lucy, "But you do understand the Temple algorithm. Or will do, I should say."

"What?" Connor looked deeply confused.

"Don't ask me to explain it, I'm not into computer programming," she shrugged, "But I do know that it was developed in the year 2023 by a man called Connor Temple, and our control system utilises it."

"What year is it now?" Connor asked weakly.

She smiled grimly. "2024. And I know you're from sixteen years ago so you're weirdly young and haven't written it yet, but you're the best chance we've got."

"You're telling me," Abby said slowly, "That the computers controlling this TAG all run using a program that _Connor _made?"

"Yes," said Lucy simply, and Abby laughed. Nick, however, looked less amused.

"Why couldn't you just hack into it before now to shut the system down?"

"That's the thing," Mick sighed. "Doctor Serowka - that's who was in charge of the project - was a bit fanatical about security. TAG had a lot of opposition, people who didn't want the machine to run. He'd seen CERN hacked into and sabotaged, he didn't want it happening to us."

"Which was why we used Temple's program," Lucy finished for him. "It's meant to be so nonsensical that it's next to impossible to hack."

"We tried and failed," Mick sighed. "We got people in, before they all got eaten. They couldn't get into it. Which is why we need you."

Connor swallowed hard. "Oh."


End file.
